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SELDENIANA 




MytmsPuvrit. lilman Sculp.' 

JOHN SELDEN, 



THE v 

TABLE TALK 

OF 

JOHN SELDEN. 

if 

A NEW EDITION, CORRECTED, 

WITH A 

aSiogtapfiual preface* 




CHIS WICK : 



COLLEGE HOUSE. 



MDCCCXV1II. 









- The matter of your prajse 



FJowes in upon roe; and I cannot rayse 
A banke against it: nothing, but the round 
Large claspe of nature, such a wit can bound : 
Monarch in letters! 

BEN JONSON TO SELPEN. 



32, 



PREFACE. 



Nothing can be more interesting than 
this little book, containing a lively picture 
of the opinions and conversation of one of 
the most eminent scholars and most dis- 
tinguished patriots England has produced, 
living at a period the most eventful of our 
history. There are few volumes of its size 
so pregnant with sense combined with the 
most profound learning, it is impossible to 
open it without finding some important fact 
or discussion, something practically useful 
and applicable to the business of life. It 
may be said of it, as of that exquisite little 
manual, Bacon's Essays, ' after the twen- 
tieth perusal one seldom fails to remark in 
it something overlooked before.' 
a 2 



VI PREFACE, 

Dr. Wilkins, the editor of Seidell's works, 
has attempted to discredit the authenticity 
of the ' Table Talk/ upon the ground of 
its containing many things unworthy of a 
man of Selden's erudition, and at variance 
with his principles and practice. But this 
objection is far from conclusive, and the 
compilation has such a complete and un:- 
affected air of genuineness, that we have 
no hesitation in giving credit to the asser- 
tion of Richard Milward, Selden's Ama- 
nuensis, who says that it was faithfully 
committed to writing, from time to time, 
during the long period of twenty years, in 
which he enjoyed the opportunity of daily 
hearing his discourse, and of recording the 
excellent things that usually fell from him. 
He appeals to the executors and friends of 
Selden, that such was the usual manner of 
his patron's conversation ; and this dedi- 
catory appeal to them is no slight testi- 
monial of the veracity of his assertion. 

It is true, that the familiar and sometimes 
coarse manner in which many of the subjects 
discussed are illustrated, is not such as might 



PREFACE. VH 

have been expected from a profound scholar, 
but Selden, with all his learning, was a man 
of the w 7 orld, familiar with the ordinary 
scenes of common life, and knew how to 
bring abstruse subjects home to the business 
and bosoms of men of ordinary capacity, 
in a manner at once perspicuous and agree- 
able. 

It is remarkable that the style of Selden, 
in those English compositions published 
during his life, appears harsh and obscure; 
but Lord Clarendon, who knew him well, 
tells us, ' that he was a clear discourser, 
and possessed the faculty of making dif- 
ficult things easy, and presenting them 
clearly to the understanding/ This faculty 
i- every where apparent in the following 
pages, which are replete with the fruits of 
his varied and extensive erudition, illustrated 
in the most plain and sometimes in the 
happiest manner by familiar parallels, with- 
out pedantry, and without pretension. In 
preparing the present edition for the press, 
the text of the first edition, printed in 4to. 
London, 1689, under the care of Richard 



vill PREFACE. 

Milward, has been scrupulously followed, 
the orthography alone having been reformed. 
Selden was born at Salvington, an obscure 
village on the coast of Sussex, near Terring, 
and not far from Worthing, on the 16th of 
December, 1584. His father was a sub- 
stantial yeoman, and had very much bet- 
tered his condition by marriage with the 
only daughter of Thomas Baker of Rush- 
ington, descended from an ancient and 
knightly family of that name. It was his 
skill in music which obtained him his wife, 
who was mother to this ' great dictator of 
learning, and glory of the English nation.' 
Selden received the rudiments of education 
at the free school of Chichester, and was 
from thence, at the age of sixteen, sent to 
the University of Oxford, and entered of 
Hart Hall, under the tuition of Anthony 
Barker, a relation of his master at Chichester 
school. His progress at college was more 
than usually rapid, and he left it with a high 
leputation in about four years, to pursue 
the study of the law in the Inner Temple, 
where he was admitted in May, 1604. He 



PREFACE. IX 

became so sedulous a student, and his pro- 
ficiency so well known, that he was soon in 
very extensive practice as a chamber coun- 
sel ; but he does not seem to have appeared 
frequently at the bar. His devotion to his 
profession did not prevent him from pur- 
suing his literary occupations with assiduity, 
and, at the early age of twenty-two, he had 
completed his Dissertation on the Civil 
Government of Britain before the Norman 
Conquest^. 

This work is an astonishing performance, 
considering the age at which it was com- 
posed. In 1610, we find him pursuing the 
same course of study, the fruits of which 
were given to the world under the titles of 
< Jani Anglorum facies altera.' * England's 
Epinomis ;' and 'The Duello, or Single 
Combat.' These publications w r ere in a 
measure connected with the studies incident 
to his profession; but in 1612, was put 
forth his elaborate and interesting com- 

* This was not published until 1615, when it was 
printed at Francfort, under the title of Analectun 
Anglo-Britan kun. 



PREFACE. 



mentary on the first twelve books of the 
Polyolbion; he must therefore have been 
indefatigable in his pursuit of knowledge 
through every channel, and in all its various 
ramifications. His intense application ap- 
pears to have very materially injured his 
health, for in the dedication, of his ' Titles 
of Honour/ published in 1614, to his friend 
Mr. Edward Heyward, he says, ' Some 
year since it was finished, wanting only in 
some parts my last hand ; which was then 
prevented by my dangerous and tedious 
sicknesse;' from this attack he recovered 
by the skill and care of Doctor Robert 
Floyd, returning to his studies with fresh 
zest, and renewed vigour, ' and thus/ says 
he, ' I employed the breathing times, which 
from the so different studies of my pro- 
fession, were allowed me. Nor hath the 
proverbial assertion, i that the Lady Com- 
mon Law must lye alone/ ever wrought 
with me/ — His fame now rang through 
Europe, and his books were received and 
read with avidity. In the year 16 17, was 
produced that extraordinary and profoundly 



PREFACE. XI 

\ 

erudite treatise on the Deities of the Ancient 
Syrians # , which he 'intended as a com- 
mentary on all the passages of the Old 
Testament relating to the idols of the hea- 
thens, and discussing therefore not only the 
Syrian, but the Arabian, Egyptian, Persian, 
African, and European idolatry/ 

His ( History of Tithes' was published 
in 16 18, in which he seemed to combat the 
divine right of the church to them, and con- 
sequently gave great offence to the clergy, 
and incurred the displeasure of king James. 
He was admitted, at the intercession of his 
friend Ben Jonson, to explain himself to 
the king in person, and seemed to have con- 
ciliated him, but in a very short time he was 
cited before the high commission court, his 
book was prohibited, he was enjoined to 
declare his contrition for having written it, 
and forbid to reply to any of those who 
might write against it, upon pain of im- 
prisonment. The king pointed out to him 
many objectionable passages, particularly 

* De Diis Syris, Syntagmata duo. London, 1617. 



Xil PKEFACE. 

one which seemed to throw a doubt upon 
the day of the birth of Christ • he therefore 
composed a short treatise upon that subject, 
and presented it to the king on Christmas 
day # . 

In the preface to his History of Tithes, 
he reproaches the clergy with ignorance and 
laziness, and upbraids them with having 
nothing to keep up their credit but beard, 
title, and habit \ and that their studies reached 
no farther than the breviary, the l postills/ 
and ' polyanthea ;' this was enough to draw 
down their indignation upon him, and he 
was consequently vehemently attacked. 
Wood says, that 'the usage he met with 
sunk so deep into his stomach, that he did 
never after affect the bishops and clergy, or 
cordially approve their calling, though many 

* This treatise does not appear to have been printed 
during Selden's life, but was published in 1661, under 
the following title, "©EANGPXMIOS; or, God made 
Man. Proving the Nativity of our Saviour to be on 
the 25th of December. London: printed by J. G. 
for Nathaniel Brooks, at the Angel, in Cornhill, 1661," 
8vo. with a wretched portrait of Selden prefixed, 
engraved by I. Chantry. 



PREFACE. Xlii 

Ways were tried to gain him to the church's 
interest/ He had certainly a great con- 
tempt for the ignorant and fanatic among 
the clergy of his day, and did not scruple 
to express it openly ; indeed it appears he 
was of opinion that the state should in- 
variably keep a rein on the church, yet he 
was partial to the episcopal form of worship. 
Though not orthodoxical in his opinions, 
he was 'a resolved serious Christian/ as 
Sir Matthew Hale told Baxter, * a great 
enemy to Hobbes's Errors, and that he had 
seen him openly oppose Hobbes so earnestly 
as either to depart from him or drive him 
from the room/ 

In the year 1621, James asserted, in one 
of his speeches, that the privileges of par- 
liament were original grants from the crown. 
Upon this occasion Selden was consulted 
both by the Lords and the Commons, and 
in the opinion which he delivered, though 
he wholly denied the point in question, yet 
with the strictest integrity he did ample 
justice to the prerogative of the crown. 

The protest made by the Commons on 
b * 



XIV PREFACE. 

this occasion was attributed to him, and the 
vengeance of the court followed. He was 
imprisoned by an order in council of the 
16th of June, which directed, f that no 
person should be suffered to speak with 
him ; nor should word, message, or writing, 
be received by him ; and that a gentleman 
of trust should be appointed to remain with 
him/ The letter which he addressed to 
Sir George Calvert, one of the secretaries 
of state, upon this occasion, is remarkable 
for the cool firmness which it exhibits. 
After being kept in confinement for five 
weeks, he was liberated at the intercession 
of Lord Keeper Williams. It was during 
this imprisonment that he prepared for the 
press the curious historical work of Eadmer, 
a Saxon monkish writer, and illustrated it 
with very learned notes. Upon its publica- 
tion he dedicated it in grateful terms to the 
Lord Keeper, thanking him for having been 
the cause of his liberation. 

From this time he seems to have taken a 
more active part in the great political events 
of the period. In 1623 he was returned 



PREFACE. XV 

member for Lancaster, and in the first two 
years of the reign of Charles the First, for 
Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire. He was one 
of the committee for forming articles of 
impeachment against the Duke of Bucking- 
ham, and was appointed one of the ma- 
nagers at his proposed trial. He was one 
of the firmest and most distinguished op- 
posers of the unconstitutional measure of 
levying money on the authority of the pre- 
rogative, and pleaded for Hampden, who 
had been imprisoned for refusing to pay 
the ship-money. It was now that his op- 
position to the corruptions of the govern- 
ment took a decided form ; and, on all im- 
portant discussions in parliament, he was 
looked up to, and listened to, with the 
greatest reverence. In consequence of the 
weight of his opinion with the house, and 
the influence of his speeches on their deci- 
sions, the government found it expedient to 
take measures to prevent his attendance ; and, 
in consequence, a charge of having uttered 
seditious expressions was preferred against 
him, and he was committed to the Tower in 



XVI PREFACE. 

March, 1628. When he had been im- 
prisoned some months, it was proposed that 
he should be discharged on giving security 
for his future good conduct; but this he 
would not accede to, and was therefore 
removed to the King's Bench prison. A 
prosecution in the Star Chamber was soon 
after commenced against him for the pub- 
lication of an alleged libel, this was a work 
written by Sir Robert Dudley, in the reign 
of James, under the title of i A Proposition 
for his Majesty's Service, to Bridle the Im- 
pertinence of Parliaments.' By the favour 
of some powerful friends his imprisonment 
was commuted for a nominal confinement 
in the Gatehouse, Westminster; which 
enabled him to retire into the country for 
about three months; he was then again 
committed to the King's Bench, and re- 
mained there until May, 1 63 J , when he was 
admitted to bail, and continued to be bailed, 
from term to term, till July, 1 6S4, when he 
was finally discharged without trial, having 
repeatedly pressed for a writ of Habeas 
Corpus without effect. During this period 



PREFACE. XV11 

the fruits of his literary occupations were 
four very learned treatises on Ancient Jewish 
Law. 

The writers of the opposite party, though 
they do not dare openly attack a character 
like that of Selden, which is invulnerable to 
the stings of malice, yet they insinuate that 
he was a rebel, and that he for some time 
suppressed his invaluable and celebrated 
treatise, c Mare Clausum seu de Dominio 
Maris,' out of pique for the affronts and 
persecutions he had suffered at the hands 
of government. There does not appear to 
be any foundation for this assertion; as, 
before he was discharged, he took an active 
part in the management of the masque pre- 
sented by the inns of court before the king 
and queen on Candlemas night, 1633; thus 
paying an agreeable compliment to them, 
and countenancing the king against the 
calumnies of the fanatical Prynne, who had 
fulminated in his Histriomastix against all 
dramatic representations, and had particu- 
larly inveighed against court masques and 
revelry; this was the more marked, as Prynne 
b 2 



XV1H PREFACE. 

was a great favourite with his party. In the- 
year 1635, he published, at the king's ex- 
press desire, his ' Mare Clausum/ written 
many years before in answer to Grotius, 
who, in his c Mare Liberum/ had contended 
for the right of the Dutch to trade to the 
Indies, and to fish in the British seas ; so 
important was the work esteemed to the 
interests of the kingdom, that i Sir William 
Beecher, one of -the clerks of the council, 
was sent with a copy of it to the barons of 
the exchequer, in the open court, that it 
might be by them laid up as a most inesti- 
mable jewel among the choice records which 
concerned the crown.' The court now 
looked upon him ' as a person worth the 
gaining ;' he was from this time a frequent 
and welcome guest at Lambeth house, and 
it was then generally believed that he might 
have chosen his own preferment in the state, 
had not his political opinions and practice 
remained inflexibly unchanged. 

In the parliaments of 1640-1, he repre- 
sented the University of Oxford, and was 
among the most distinguished of those in 



PREFACE. XIX 

opposition to the court ; he joined in the 
measures for the prosecution of the Earl 
of Strafford, and Archbishop Laud ; for this 
last part of his conduct he has been cen- 
sured by some of his biographers, as dis- 
daining the ties of private gratitude ; it is 
true he had been in habits of intimacy with 
the prelate, but what were the obligations 
he had received from him, that should make 
him forget what he considered his duty to 
his country, we are not told. 

In 1642, Charles wished to have made 
Selden Lord Chancellor, but he declined it 
upon the plea of ill health. This overture 
created a suspicion that he might be tam- 
pering with the royal party, and he was even 
accused of being privy to the design of 
Waller the poet, to deliver London into the 
hands of the king. But Waller being ques- 
tioned i whether Selden, Pierpoint, White- 
locke, and others, were acquainted with that 
plot; he answered, that they were not ; but 
that he came one evening to Selden's study, 
where Pierpoint and Whitelocke then were 
with Selden, on purpose to impart it to them 



XX PREFACE. 

all ; and, speaking of such a thing in general 
terms, these gentlemen did so inveigh against 
any such thing as treachery and baseness, 
and that which might be the occasion of 
shedding much blood, that he said he durst 
not, for the awe and respect which he had 
for Selden and the rest, communicate any 
particulars to them, but was almost dis- 
heartened himself to proceed in it/ 

Selden, when accused, denied the charge 
upon oath ; it appears that he was at this 
time not inclined to enter into all the violent 
measures of his party, for though he voted 
against the king's commission of array, yet 
he strenuously supported the royal pre- 
rogative as to the militia ; by this it appears 
that he was well disposed toward the just 
claims of the king, though determined not 
to shrink from his duty; and, above all, not 
to serve him separately from the parliament. 

In 1643, he was chosen one of the lay 
members of the presbyterian clergy, and it 
is reported that he could not conceal his 
disgust at the ignorance and fanaticism of 
«ome of its members : two stories are cur- 



PREFACE. XXI 

rent respecting his conduct in this assembly, 
but neither of them are worth recording. 
He soon after subscribed to the famous 
* solemn league and covenant/ and was 
appointed Keeper of the Records in the 
Tower. In 1645, he became one of the 
commissioners of the Admiralty, and the 
next year five thousand pounds were pub- 
licly voted him in consideration of his ser- 
vices and sufferings in the public cause, but 
with true magnanimity he declined accepting 
it. ' While the great mass of his political 
compeers had been swayed by ambition, 
vanity, resentment, or avarice, patriotism 
had been the motive, and the law of the 
land the index of his conduct.' — c In his po- 
litical opinions he seems to have enter- 
tained a high respect for the sacredness of 
the social contract; and he justified the 
resistance to the Stewarts, on the ground 
that they had infringed and violated this 
compact between the prince and the peo- 
ple.' Thus far he had been active in pro- 
moting what he deemed a necessary reform 
in the state, but from the scenes of anarchy 



XX11 PREFACE. 

and confusion which followed, he retired 
with a clear conscience, and returned to the 
prosecution of his beloved studies with 
eagerness. At this period he commenced a 
work of stupendous erudition, which he 
published in parts, entitled, 'De Synedris 
et Prefecturis veterum Hebraeorum;' he 
lived but to finish three books. Shortly 
before his death he wrote also a preface to 
the ' Decern Scriptores Anglicanae,' a Col- 
lection of Monkish Historians, published 
by Sir R. Twysden ; and a vindication of 
his c Mare Clausum,' which contains some 
particulars of his own history. Of his 
works, which are very numerous, a list may 
be found in the Biographia Brittannica, they 
were collected and published in six volumes, 
folio, by the learned Dr. Wilkins, in 1726. 

" At length, says Wood, i after this great 
light of our nation had lived to about the 
age of man, it was extinguished on the last 
of November, 1654." He died of a gra- 
dual decline at the Carmelite, or Friary 
House, in White Friars, which he possessed, 
with other property, to a very considerable 



PREFACE. XXill 

amount, by the bequest of Elizabeth Coun- 
tess Dowager of Kent, with whom he had 
lived in the strictest amity, as he had also 
done with the Earl in his lifetime. He died 
very rich, having lived a bachelor, in the 
exercise of a lucrative profession, with no 
disposition to expense, beyond the formation 
of a most extensive and valuable library; 
which he had once bequeathed to the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, but revoked the legacy on 
account of some disgust taken at being re- 
quired to give a bond as security for the loan 
of a manuscript. It was therefore left at the 
disposal of his executors, but he directed it 
not to be sold, they had intended bestowing it 
on the society of the Inner Temple, and it 
actually remained for five years in chambers 
hired for the purpose ; but no preparations 
being made for building a room to contain 
it, the executors placed it at length in the 
Bodleian Library, where it remains, with 
his other collections. 

He was buried, by his own direction, in 
the Temple church, on the south side of 
the round walk, his funeral was splendid, 



XXIV PREFACE. 

and attended by all the judges, benchers, 
and great officers, with a concourse of the 
most distinguished persons of the time. 

To Lord Clarendon's delineation of his 
character may be added what Whitelocke 
says of him, i that his mind was as great as 
his learning, being very generous and hos- 
pitable, and a good companion, especially 
where he liked.' Dr. Wilkins says, ' he 
was naturally of a serious temper, which 
was somewhat soured by his sufferings, so 
that he was free only with a few/ 

His parliamentary character has been 
recently most ably sketched by an anony- 
mous writer in a periodical paper. * Selden 
was a member of the long parliament, and 
took an active and useful part in many im- 
portant discussions and transactions. He 
appears to have been regarded somewhat in 
the light of a valuable piece of national 
property, like a museum, or great public 
library, resorted to, as a matter of course, 
and a matter of right, in all the numerous 
cases in which assistance was wanted from 
any part of the whole compass of legal and 



PREFACE. XXV 

historical learning. He appeared in the 
national council not so much the repre- 
sentative of the contemporary inhabitants 
of a particular city, as of all the people of 
all past ages; concerning whom, and whose 
institutions, he was deemed to know what- 
ever was to be known, and to be able to 
furnish whatever, within so vast a retrospect, 
was of a nature to give light and authority 
in the decision of questions arising in a 
doubtful and hazardous state of the national 
affairs/ 

c After all/ says one of his biographers, 
1 the most endearing part of Mr. Sclden's 
character is elegantly touched by himself in 
the choice of his motto :' 

Tlepl iravTOQ rr^v eXevOeplar. 
LIBERTY ABOVE ALL THINGS- 



TABLE TALK. 



BEING THE DISCOURSES OF 



JOHN SELDEN, ESQ: 



OR HIS SENCE OF VARIOUS MATTERS OF WEIGHT AND 

HIGH CONSEQUENCE, RELATING ESPECIALLY TO 

RELIGION AND STATE. 



Distingue Tempora. 



LONDON: 

Printed for E, Smith, in the Year M dclxxxix. 



TO THE HONOURABLE 

MR. JUSTICE HALES, 

ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE COMMON PLEAS ; 

AND TO THE MUCH HONOURED 

EDWARD HEY WOOD, JOHN VAUGHAN, 

AND 

ROWLAND JEVVKS, ESQUIRES. 



MOST WORTHY GENTLEMEN, 

Were you not Executors to that person, 
who, while he lived, was the glory of the 
nation ; yet am I confident any thing of his 
would find acceptance with you, and truly 
the sense and notion here is wholly his, and 
most of the words. I had the opportunity 
to hear his discourse twenty years together, 
and lest all those excellent things that usually 
fell from him might be lost, some of them 
from time to time I faithfully committed to 
writing, which here digested into this method, 
c 2 



XXX DEDICATION. 

I humbly present to your hands ; — you will 
quickly perceive them to be his by the fami- 
liar illustrations wherewith they are set off, 
and in which you know he was so happy, 
that, with a marvellous delight to those that 
heard him, he would presently convey the 
highest points of religion, and the most 
important affairs of state to an ordinary 
apprehension. 

In reading be pleased to distinguish times, 
and in your fancy carry along with you the 
when and the why, many of these things 
were spoken ; this will give them the more 
life, and the smarter relish. It is possible 
the entertainment you find in them, may 
render you the more inclinable to pardon 
the presumption of 

Your most obliged, and 

Most humble Servant, 

RI. MILWARD. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page 

Preface... . ... v 

Dedication xxix 

Abbies, Priories, &c 1 

Articles 3 

Baptism 4 

Bastard 5 

Bible, Scripture ... ib. 

Bishops before the Parliament 10 

in the Parliament 12 

— on t of the Parliament 18 

Books, Authors 23 

Canon Law 25 

Ceremony ib. 

Chancellor 26 

Changing Sides ib. 

Christmas 28 

Christians 29 

Church 30 

Church of Rome 31 

Churches 32 

City 33 

Clergy... ib. 

High Commission 35 

House of Commons 36 



XXXU CONTENTS. 

Page 

Confession 36 

Competency 37 

Great Conjunction 38 

Conscience ib. 

Consecrated Places 39 

Contracts . ,. 41 

Council 42 

Convocation ib. 

Creed 43 

Damnation ib. 

Devils 44 

Self-Deniaf 47 

Duel 48 

Epitaph 50 

Equity ib. 

Evil Speaking 51 

Excommunication 52 

Faith and Works 55 

Fasting Days 56 

Fathers and Sons 57 

Fines ib. 

Free will 58 

Friars ib. 

Friends 59 

Genealogy of Christ ib. 

Gentlemen 60 

Gold 61 

Hall ib. 

Hell 62 

Holy Days... 63 

Humility , ib. 

Idolatry 64 

Jew > 65 

Invincible Ignorance ib. 



CONTENTS. XXX111 

Page 

Images — , 66 

Imperial Constitutions .. , 67 

Imprisonment . ib. 

Incendiaries 68 

Independency . ib. 

Things indifferent 70 

Public Interest ib. 

Human Invention ... 70 

Judgments 71 

Judge 72 

Juggling ib. 

Jurisdiction * 73 

Jus Divinum ib. 

King 74 

King of England 76 

The King 78 

Knights Service 80 

Land 81 

Language ib. 

Law ..., , v „ 82 

Law of Nature... 83 

Learning 85 

Lectures 86 

Libels 87 

Liturgy ib. 

Lords in the Parliament .... 88 

Lords before the Parliament 89 

Marriage 90 

■ of Cousin-germans ....* 91 

Measure of things 92 

Difference of Men 93 

Minister Divine 94 

Money 100 

Moral Honesty 101 



XXXIV CONTENTS. 

TIT - P ^ e 

Mortgage . 102 

Number... ib. 

Oaths 103 

Oracles 106 

Opinion ib* 

Parity 108 

Parliament ib« 

Parson Ill 

Patience 112 

Peace ib. 

Penance • 113 

People ib. 

Pleasure 114 

Philosophy 116 

Poetry ib. 

Pope 118 

Popery 122 

Power, State ib. 

Prayer 125 

Preaching li'8 

Predestination 135 

Preferment. 136 

Premunire 138 

Prerogative 139 

Presbytery 140 

Priests of Rome 142 

Prophecies 143 

Proverbs ib. 

Question 144 

Reason ; ib. 

Retaliation 145 

Reverence..... 146 

Non-residency ib. 

Religion 147 



CONTENTS. XXXV 

Page 

Sabbath :.. 1.53 

Sacrament 154 

Salvation ib. 

State 155 

Superstition ib. 

Subsidies 156 

Simony ib. 

Ship Money 157 

Synod Assembly ib. 

Thanksgiving 160 

Tithes ib. 

Trade 162 

Tradition 163 

Transubstantiation 164 

Traitor ib. 

Trinity 165 

Truth » ib. 

Trial 166 

University 167 

Vows 168 

Usury 169 

Pious uses 169 

War 170 

Witches 174 

Wife ib. 

Wisdom 175 

Wit 176 

Women 177 

Year 178 

Zealots 180 



— — You, that have been 

Ever at home, yet have all countries seene; 

And like a compasse, keeping one foot still 

Upon jour center, do your circle fill 

Of general knowledge ; watch'd men ; manners too ; 

Heard, what past times have said ; seene what ours do, 

BEN JONSON TO SELDEN. 



THE 

DISCOURSES 



OF 



JOHN SELDEN, ESQ. 



ABBIES, PRIORIES, &C. 

1 . x HE unwillingness of the monks to part 
with their land, will fall out to be just nothing, 
because they were yielded up to the king by 
a supreme hand, viz. a parliament. If a king 
conquer another country, the people are loath 
to loose their lands, yet no divine will deny, 
but the king may give them to whom he 
please. If a parliament make a law con- 
cerning leather, or any other commodity, you 
and I for example are parliament men, per- 
haps in respect to our own private interests, 
we are against it, yet the major part conclude 
it, we are then involved, and the law is good. 

B 



2 TABLE TALK. 

2. When the founder of abbies laid a curse 
upon those that should take away those lands, 
I would fain know what power they had to 
curse me ; it is not the curses that come from 
the poor, or from any body, that hurt me, 
because they come from them, but because I 
do something ill against them that deserves 
God should curse me for it. On the other 
side it is not a man's blessing me that makes 
me blessed, he only declares me to be so ; and 
if I do well I shall be blessed, whether any 
bless me or not. 

3. At the time of dissolution, they were 
tender in taking from the abbots and priors 
their lands and their houses, till they sur- 
rendered them (as most of them did). Indeed 
the prior of St. John's, Sir Richard Weston, 
being a stout man, got into France, and stood 
out a whole year, at last submitted, and the 
king took in that priory also, to which the 
Temple belonged, and many other houses in 
England. They did not then cry, no abbots, no 
priors, as we do now, no bishops, no bishops. 

4. Henry the Fifth put away the friars, 
aliens, and seized to himself one hundred 
thousand pounds a year, and therefore they 
were not the Protestants only that took away 
church lands. 



TABLE TALK. 3 

5. In queen Elizabeth's time, when all the 
abbies were pulled down, all good works 
defaced, then the preachers must cry up jus- 
tification by faith, not by good works. 

ARTICLES. 

1. The nine and thirty Articles are much 
another thing in Latin (in which tongue they 
were made) than they are translated into 
English: they were made at three several 
convocations, and confirmed by act of par- 
liament six or seven times after. There is a 
secret concerning them : of late ministers have 
subscribed to all of them, but by act of par- 
liament that confirmed them, the}^ ought only 
to subscribe to those articles which contain 
matter of faith, and the doctrine of the sacra- 
ments, as appears by the first subscriptions. 
But bishop Bancroft (in the convocation held 
in king James's days) he began it, that minis* 
ters should subscribe to three things, to the 
king's supremacy, to the Common Prayer, 
and to the Thirty-nine Articles; many of 
them do not contain matter of faith. Is it 
matter of faith how the church should be 
governed ? whether infants should be baptized ? 
whether we have any property in our goods ? 
&c. 



TABLE TALK. 



BAPTISM. 



1 . It was a good way to persuade men to be 
christened, to tell them that they had a foul- 
ness about them, viz. original sin, that could 
not be washed away but by baptism. 

2. The baptizing of children, with us, does 
only prepare a child against he comes to be a 
man, to understand what Christianity means. 
In the church of Rome it hath this effect, it 
frees children from hell. They say they go 
into limbus infantum. It succeeds circum- 
cision, and we are sure the child understood 
nothing of that at eight days old ; why then 
may not we as reasonably baptize a child at 
that age? In England, of late years, I ever 
thought the parson baptized his own fingers 
rather than the child. 

3. In the primitive times they had god- 
fathers to see the children brought up in the 
Christian religion, because many times, when 
the father was a Christian, the mother was 
not; and sometimes when the mother was a 
Christian, the father was not; and therefore 
they made choice of two or more that were 
Christians, to see their children brought up 
in that faith. 



TABLE TALK. 



BASTARD. 



1 . It is said, Deut. xxiii. 2. A bastard shall 
not enter into the congregation of the Lord, 
even to the tenth generation. — Non ingredietur 
in Ecclesiam Domini, he shall not enter into 
the church. The meaning of the phrase is, 
he shall not marry a Jewish woman. But 
upon this grossly mistaken ; a hastard at this 
day in the Church of Rome, without a dis- 
pensation, cannot take orders ; the thing haply 
well enough, where it is so settled ; but it is 
upon a mistake (the place having no reference 
to the church) appears plainly by, what follows 
at the third verse, An Ammonite or Moabite 
shall not enter into the congregation of the 
Lord, even to the tenth generation. Now you 
know with the Jews, an Ammonite or a 
Moabite could never be a priest, because their 
priests were born so, not made. 

BIBLE, SCRIPTURE. 

1. It is a great question how we know Scrip- 
ture to be Scripture, whether by the church, 
or by man's private spirit. Let me ask you how 
I know any thing ? how I know this carpet to 
be green? First, because somebody told me 
B 2 



6 TABLE TALK. 

it was green ; that you call the church in your 
way. Then after I have been told it is green, 
when I see that colour again, I know it to be 
green, my own eyes tell me it is green ; that 
you call the private spirit. 

2. The English translation of the Bible, is 
the best translation in the world, and renders 
the sense of the original best, taking in for 
the English translation, the bishops bible, as 
well as king James's. The translation in king 
James's time took an excellent way. That 
part of the Bible was given to him who was 
most excellent in such a tongue (as the Apoc- 
rypha to Andrew Downs) and then they met 
together, and one read the translation, the rest 
holding in their hands some bible, either of 
the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, 
Italian, &c. ; if they found any fault they spoke, 
if not, he read on. 

3. There is no book so translated as the 
Bible for the purpose. If I translate a French 
book into English, I turn it into English 
phrase, not into French-English, il fait f void, 
I say it is cold, not, it makes cold; but the 
bible is rather translated into English words, 
than into English phrase. The Hebraisms 
are kept, and the phrase of that language is 
kept : as for example (he uncovered her shame), 



TABLE TALK. 7 

which is well enough, so long as scholars have 
to do with it ; but when it comes among the 
common people, Lord, what gear do they 
make of it ! 

4. Scrutamini Scripturas. These two words 
have undone the world : because Christ spake 
it to his disciples, therefore we must all, men, 
women and children, read and interpret the 
Scripture. 

5. Henry the Eighth made a law, that all 
men might read the Scripture, except servants, 
but no woman, except ladies and gentlewomen, 
who had leisure, and might ask somebody the 
meaning. The law was repealed in Edward 
the Sixth's days. 

6. Lay-men have best interpreted the hard 
places in the bible, such as Johannes Picus, 
Scaliger, Grotius, Salmasius, Heinsius, &c. 

7. If you ask which of Erasmus, Beza, or 
Grotius, did best upon the New Testament, 
it is an idle question, for they all did well in 
their way. Erasmus broke down the first 
brick, Beza added many things, and Grotius 
added much to him, in whom we have either 
something new, or something heightened, that 
was said before, and so it was necessary to 
have them all three. 

8. The text serves only to guess by : wc 



3 TABLE TALK. 

must satisfy ourselves fully out of the authors 
that lived about those times. 

9. In interpreting the Scripture, many do 
as if a man should see one have ten pounds, 
which he reckoned by one, two, three, four, 
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten; meaning four, 
was but four units, and five, five units, &c. 
and that he had in all but ten pounds; the 
other that sees him, takes not the figures 
together as he doth, but picks here and there, 
and thereupon reports, that he hath five pounds 
in one bag, and six pounds in another bag, 
and nine pounds in another bag, &c. when as 
in truth he hath but ten pounds in all. So 
we pick out a text here and there, to make it 
serve our turn; whereas, if w r e take it all 
together, and considered what went before, 
and what followed after, we should find it 
meant no such thing. 

10. Make no more allegories in scripture 
than needs must. The fathers were too frequent 
in them ; they indeed, before they fully under- 
stood the literal sense, looked out for an 
allegory. The folly whereof you may con- 
ceive thus ; here at the first sight appears to 
me in my window, a glass and a book ; I take 
it for granted it is a glass and a book, thereupon 
I go about to tell you what they signif}^ after- 



TABLE TALK. 9 

wards, upon nearer view, they prove no such 
thing, one is a box made like a book, the 
other is a picture made like a glass; where is 
now my allegory ? 

11. When men meddle with the literal 
text, the question is, where they should stop ? 
In this case a man must venture his discretion* 
and do his best to satisfy himself and others 
in those places where he doubts, for although 
we call the Scripture the word of God (as it 
is) yet it was writ by a man, a mercenary man, 
whose copy either might be false, or he might 
make it false : for example, here were a thou- 
sand bibles printed in England with the text 
thus, Thou shalt commit adultery, the word 
not left out; might not this text be mended? 

12. The Scripture may have more senses 
besides the literal, because God understands 
all things at once ; but a man's writing has but 
one true sense, which is that which the author 
meant when he writ it. 

13. When you meet with several readings 
of the text, take heed you admit nothing 
against the tenets of your church, but do as if 
you were going over a bridge ; be sure you 
hold fast by the rail, and then you may dance 
here and there as you please; be sure you 



10 TABLE TALK. 

keep to what is settled, and then you may 
flourish upon your various lections. 

14. The Apocrypha is bound with the Bi- 
bles of all churches that have been hitherto. 
Why should we leave it out ? the church of 
Rome has her Apocrypha, viz. Susanna, and 
Bell and the Dragon, which she does not 
esteem equally with the rest of those books 
that we call Apocrypha. 

BISHOPS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT. 

1. A bishop as a bishop, had never any 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; for as soon as he 
was electus conftrmatus, that is, after the three 
proclamations in Bow-church, he might ex- 
ercise jurisdiction before he was consecrated; 
not till then, he was no bishop, neither could 
he give orders. Besides, suffragans were 
bishops, and they never claimed any juris- 
diction. 

2. Anciently, the noblemen lay within the 
city for safety and security. The bishops 
houses were by the water-side, because they 
were held sacred persons which nobody would 
hurt. 

3. There was some sense for commmdams. 



TABLE TALK. 11 

at first, when there was a living void, and 
never a clerk to serve it, the bishop was to 
keep it till they found a fit man, but now it is 
a trick for the bishop to keep it for himself. 

4. For a bishop to preach, it is to do other 
folks office, as if the steward of the house 
should execute the porters or the cook's place ; 
it is his business to see that they and all other 
about the house perform their duties. 

5. That which is thought to have done the 
bishops hurt, is their going about to bring men 
to a blind obedience, imposing things upon 
them, though perhaps small and well enough, 
without preparing them, and insinuating into 
their reasons and fancies. Every man loves to 
know his commander. I wear those gloves, 
but perhaps if an alderman should command 
me, I should think much to do it; what has 
he to do with me ? Or if he has, peradventure 
I do not know it. This jumping upon things 
at first dash will destroy all ; to keep up friend- 
ship, there must be little addresses and appli- 
cations, whereas bluntness spoils it quickly : 
to keep up the hierarchy, there must be little 
applications made to men, they must be 
brought on by little and little : so in the pri- 
mitive times the power was gained, and so it 
must be continued. Scaliger said of Erasmus : 



12 TABLE TALK. 

Si minor esse volvit, major fuisset. So we 
may say of the bishops, Si minores esse vo- 
luerint, majores fuissent. 

6. The bishops were too hasty, else with a 
discreet slowness they might have had what 
they aimed at: the old story of the fellow, 
that told the gentleman, he might get to such 
a place, if he did not ride too fast, would have 
fitted their turn. 

7. For a bishop to cite an old canon to 
strengthen his new articles, is as if a lawyer 
should plead an old statute that has been 
repealed God knows how long. 

BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT. 

1. Bishops have the same right to sit in 
parliament as the best earls and barons, that 
is, those that were made by writ : if you ask 
one of them (Arundel, Oxford, Northumber- 
land) why they sit in the house? they can 
only say, their fathers sat there before them, 
and their grandfather before him, &c. And 
so says the bishops, he that was a bishop of 
this place before me, sat in the House, and 
he that was a bishop before him, &c. Indeed 
your later earls and barons have it expressed 
in their patents, that they shall be called to 



TABLE TALK. lb 

the parliament. Objection, But the lords 
sit there by blood, the bishops not. A?tsw. 
It is true, they sit not there both the same 
way, yet that takes not away the bishop's 
right: if I am a parson of a parish, I have 
as much right to my glebe and tythe, as you 
have to your land which your ancestors have 
had in that parish eight hundred years. 

2. The bishops were not barons because 
they had baronies annexed to their bishoprics 
(for few of them had so, unless the old ones, 
Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, &c. the 
new erected we are sure had none, as Glouces- 
ter, Peterborough, &c. besides, few of the 
temporal lords had any baronies.) But they 
are barons, because they are called by writ 
to the parliament, and bishops were in the 
parliament ever since there was any mention 
or sign of a parliament in England. 

3. Bishops may be judged by the peers, 
though in time of Popery it never happened, 
because they pretended they were not ob- 
noxious to a secular court, but their way was 
to cry, Ego sum f rater Domini Papce, I am 
brother to my Lord the Pope, and therefore 
take not myself to be judged by you; in this 
case they empanneled a Middlesex jury, and 
dispatched the business. 



14 TABLE TALK. 

4. Whether may bishops be present in cases 
of blood? Answ. That they had a right to 
give votes, appears by this : always when they 
did go out, they left a proxy, and in the time 
of the abbots, one man had ten, twenty, or 
thirty voices. In Richard the Second s time, 
there was a protestation against the canons, 
by which they were forbidden to be present 
in case of blood. The statute of the twenty- 
fifth of Henry the Eighth may go a great way 
in this business. The clergy were forbidden 
to use or cite any canon, &c. but in the latter 
end of the statute, there was a clause, that 
such canons that were in usage in this king- 
dom should be in force till the thirty-two 
commissioners appointed should make others, 
provided they were not contrary to the king's 
supremacy. Now the question will be, whe- 
ther these canons for blood were in use in this 
kingdom or no ? the contrary whereof may 
appear by many precedents, in Richard the 
Third and Henry the Seventh, and the begin- 
ning of Henry the Eighth, in which time there 
were more attainted than since, or scarce be- 
fore. The canons of irregularity of blood were 
never received in England, but upon pleasure. 
If a lay lord was attainted, the bishops as- 
sented to his condemning, and were always 



TABLE TALK. 15 

present at the passing of the Bill of Attainder : 
but if a spiritual lord, they went out as if 
they cared not whose head was cut off, so 
none of their own. In those days the bishops 
being of great houses, were often entangled 
with the lords in matters of treason. But 
when do you hear of a bishop a traitor now ? 

5. You would not have bishops meddle 
with temporal affairs, think who you are that 
say it. If a Papist, they do in your church ; 
if an English Protestant, they do among you ; 
if a Presbyterian, where you have no bishops, 
you mean your Presbyterian lay elders should 
meddle with temporal affairs as well as spi- 
ritual. Besides, all jurisdiction is temporal, 
and in no church but they have some juris- 
diction or other. The question then will be 
reduced to magis and minus; they meddle 
more in one church than in another. 

6. Objection. Bishops give not their votes 
by blood in parliament, but by an office an- 
nexed to them, which being taken away, they 
cease to vote ; therefore there is not the same 
reason for them as for temporal lords. Ansiv. 
We do not pretend they have that power the 
same way, but they have a right : he that has 
an office in Westminster-hall for his life, the 



16 TABLE TALK. 

office is as much his, as his land is his that 
hath land by inheritance. 

7. Whether had the inferior clergy ever 
any thing to do in the parliament? Answ. No, 
no otherwise than thus : there were certain of 
the clergy that used to assemble near the par- 
liament, with whom the bishops upon occasion 
might consult (but there were none of the 
convocation, as it was afterwards settled, viz. 
the dean, the archdeacon, one for the chapter, 
and two for the diocese), but it happened b} r 
continuance of time, to save charges and 
trouble, their voices and the consent of the 
whole clergy were involved in the bishops, 
and at this day the bishops' writs run, to bring 
all these to the parliament, but the bishops 
themselves stand for all. 

8. Bishops were formerly one of these two 
conditions; either men bred canonists and 
civilians, sent up and down ambassadors to 
Rome and other parts, and so by their merit 
came to that greatness ; or else great noblemen's 
sons, brothers, and nephews, and so born to 
govern the state : now they are of a low con- 
dition, their education nothing of that way ; 
he gets a living, and then a greater living, and 
then a greater than that, and so comes to 
govern. 



TABLE TALK. 17 

9. Bishops are now unfit to govern because 
of their learning; they are bred up in another 
law, they run to the text for something done 
amongst the Jews that nothing concerns Eng- 
land ; it is just as if a man would have a kettle 
and he would not go to our brazier to have it 
made as they make kettles, but he would 
have it made as Hiram made his brass-work, 
who wrought in Solomon s temple. 

10. To take away bishops' votes, is but the 
beginning to take them away; for then they 
can be no longer useful to the king or state. 
It is but like the little wimble, to let in the 
greater auger. Objection. But they are but 
for their life, and that makes them always go 
for the king as he will have them. Answ. This 
is against a double charity, for you must always 
suppose a bad king and bad bishops. Then 
again, whether will a man be sooner content, 
himself should be made a slave or his son 
after him? (when we talk of our children we 
mean ourselves) besides they that have pos- 
terity are more obliged to the king, than they 
that are only for themselves, in all the reason 
in the world. 

11. Bow shall the clergy be in the par- 
liament if the bishops are taken away ? Answ. 
By the laity, because the bishops in whom 

c 2 



IB TABLE TALK. 

the rest of the clergy are included, are sent 
to the taking away their own votes, by being 
involved in the major part of the house. This 
follows naturally. 

12. The bishops being put out of the house, 
whom will they lay the fault upon now? when 
the dog is beat out of the room, where will 
they lay the stink ?. 

BISHOPS OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT. 

1. In the beginning bishops and presbyters 
were alike, like the gentlemen in the country, 
whereof one is made deputy lieutenant, ano- 
ther justice of peace; so one is made a bishop, 
another a dean ; and that kind of government 
by archbishops and bishops no doubt came 
in, in imitation of the temporal government, 
not jure divino. In time of the Roman em- 
pire, where they had a legatus, there they 
placed an archbishop, where they had a rector 
there a bishop, that every one might be in- 
structed in Christianity, which now they had 
received into the empire. 

2. They that speak ingeniously of bishops 
and presbyters, say, that a bishop is a great 
presbyter, and during the time of his being 
bishop, above a presbyter: as your president 



TABLE TALK. 19 

of the college of physicians, is above the rest, 
yet he himself is no more than a doctor of 
physic. 

3. The words bishop and presbyter are 
promiscuously used, that is confessed by all : 
and though the word bishop be in Timothy 
and Titus, yet that will not prove the bishops 
ought to have a jurisdiction over the pres- 
byter, though Timothy or Titus had by the 
order that was given them: somebody must 
take care of the rest, and that jurisdiction 
was but to excommunicate, and that was but 
to tell them they should come no more into 
their company. Or grant they did make 
canons one for another, before they came to 
be in the state, does it follow they must do so 
when the state has received them into it? 
What if Timothy had power in Ephesus, and 
Titus in Crete over the presbyters? does it 
follow therefore the bishop must have the 
same in England ? must we be governed like 
Ephesus and Crete ? 

4. However some of the bishops pretend 
to be jure divino, yet the practice of the king- 
dom had ever been otherwise ; for whatever 
bishops do otherwise than the law permits, 
Westminster-hall can control, or send them 
to absolve, &c. 



20 TABLE TALK. 

5. He that goes about to prove bishops jure 
divino, does as a man that having a sword 
shall strike it against an anvil : if he strike it 
a while there, he may peradventure loosen it, 
though it be never so well riveted. 'Twill serve 
to strike another sword, or cut flesh, but not 
against an anvil. 

6. If you should say you hold your land 
by Moses or God's law, and would try it by 
that, you may perhaps lose, but by the law 
of the kingdom you are sure of it : so may 
the bishops by this plea of jure divino lose 
all. The pope had as good a title by the law 
of England as could be had, had he not left 
that, and claimed by power from God. 

7. There is no government enjoined by ex- 
ample, but by precept; it does not follow we 
must have bishops still, because we have had 
them so long. They are equally mad who 
say bishops are so jure divino that they must 
be continued, and they who say they are so 
antichristian, that they must be put away : all 
is as the state pleases. 

8. To have no ministers but presbyters, 
it is as in the temporal state they should have 
no officers but constables. Bishops do best 
stand with monarchy, that as amongst the 
laity, you have dukes, lords, lieutenants, 



TABLE TALK. 21 

judges, &c. to send down the king's pleasure 
to his subjects ; so you have bishops to govern 
the inferior clergy : these upon occasion may 
address themselves to the king, otherwise 
every parson of the parish must come, and 
run up to the court. 

9. The Protestants have no bishops in 
France, because they live in a catholic coun- 
try, and they will not have catholic bishops ; 
therefore they must govern themselves as well 
as they may. 

10. What is that to the purpose, to what 
end bishops' lands were given to them at first? 
you must look to the law and custom of the 
place. What is that to any temporal lord's 
estate, how lands were first divided, or how 
in William the Conqueror's days? And if 
men at first were juggled out of their estates, 
yet they are rightly their successors. If my 
father cheat a man, and he consent to it, the 
inheritance is rightly mine. 

11. If there be no bishops, there must be 
something else, which has the power of bi- 
shops, though it be in many ; and then had 
you not as good keep them ? If you will have 
no half-crowns, but only single pence, yet 
thirty single pence are a half-crown ; and then 
had you not as good keep both? But the 



22 TABLE TALK. 

bishops have done ill. It was the men, not the 
function ; as if you should say, you would 
have no more half-crowns, because they were 
stolen, when the truth is they were not stolen 
because they were half-crowns, but because 
they were money, and light in a thief's hand. 

12. They that would pull down the bishops 
and erect a new way of government, do as he 
that pulls down an old house, and builds 
another, in another fashion; there is a great 
deal of do, and a great deal of trouble, the 
old rubbish must be carried away, and new 
materials must be brought, workmen must be 
provided ; and perhaps the old one would have 
served as well. 

13. If the parliament and presbyterian 
party should dispute who should be judge? 
Indeed, in the beginning of queen Elizabeth, 
there was such a difference between the pro- 
testants and papists, and Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
Lord Chancellor, was appointed to be judge ; 
but the conclusion was the stronger party car- 
ried it : for so religion was brought into king- 
doms, so it has been continued, and so it may 
be cast out, when the state pleases. 

14. It will be a great discouragement to 
scholars that bishops should be put down; 
for now the father can say to his son, and the 



TABLE TALK. 23 

tutor to his pupil, Study hard, and you shall 
have vocem et sedem in parliamento ; then it 
must be, Study hard, and you shall have a 
hundred a year if you please your parish. 
Objection. But they that enter into the minis- 
try for preferment, are like Judas that looked 
after the bag. Ans. It may be so, if they 
turn scholars at Judas's age, but what argu- 
ments will they use to persuade them to follow 
their books while they are young ? 

BOOKS, AUTHORS. 

1. The giving a bookseller his price for his 
books has this advantage : he that will do so, 
shall have the refusal of whatsoever comes to 
his hand, and so by that means get many 
things, which otherwise he never should have 
seen. So it is in giving a bawd her price. 

2. In buying books or other commodities, 
it is not always the best way to bid half so 
much as the seller asks : witness the country 
fellow that went to buy two shovel groat shil- 
lings, they asked him three shillings, and lie 
bid them eighteen-pence. 

3. They counted the price of the books, 
Acts xix. 19, and found fifty thousand pieces 
of silver, that is so many sextertii, or so many 



24 TABLE TALK. 

three-halfpence of our money, about three 
hundred pounds sterling. 

4. Popish books teach and inform : what 
we know, we know much out of them. The 
Fathers, Church Story, Schoolmen, all may 
pass for Popish books, and if you take away 
them, what learning will you leave ? Besides 
who must be judge? The customer or the 
waiter? If he disallows a book it must not be 
brought into the kingdom, then Lord have 
mercy upon all scholars. These puritan preach- 
ers, if they have any things good, they have it 
out of Popish books, though they will not 
acknowledge it, for fear of displeasing the 
people ; he is a poor divine that cannot sever 
the good from the bad. 

5. It is good to have translations, because 
they serve as a comment, so far as the judgment 
of the man goes. 

6. In answering a book, it is best to be 
short, otherwise he that I write against will 
suspect I intend to weary him, not to satisfy 
him. Besides in being long I shall give my 
adversary a huge advantage, somewhere or 
other he will pick a hole. 

7. In quoting of books, quote such authors 
as are usually read ; others you may read for 
your own satisfaction, but not name them. 



TABLE TALK. 25 

8. Quoting of authors is most for matter of 
fact, and then I write them as I would pro- 
duce a witness, sometimes for a free expres- 
sion; and then I give the author his due, and 
gain myself praise by reading him. 

9. To quote a modern Dutchman where I 
may use a classic author, is as if I were to 
justify my reputation, and I neglect all persons 
of note and quality that know me, and bring 
the testimonial of the scullion in the kitchen. 

CANON-LAW. 

If I would study the canon-law as it is 
used in England f I must study the heads here 
in use, then go to the practisers in those courts 
where that law is practised, and know their 
customs : so for all the study in the world. 

CEREMONY. 

1. Ceremony keeps up all things; it is like 
a penny-glass to a rich spirit, or some excel- 
lent water; without it the water were spilt, the 
spirit lost. 

2. Of all people ladies have no reason to 
cry down ceremonies, for they take themselves 
slighted without it. And were they not used 
B 



26 TABLE TALK. 

with ceremony, with compliments and ad- 
dresses, with legs, and kissing of hands, they 
were the pitifullest creatures in the world; but 
yet methinks to kiss their hands after their 
lips, as some do, is like little boys, that after 
they eat the apple, fall to the paring, out of a 
love they have to the apple. 

CHANCELLOR. 

1. The bishop is not to sit with the chancellor 
in his court, as being a thing either beneath 
him, or beside him, no more than the king is 
to sit in the King's-bench when he has made 
a lord chief justice. 

2. The chancellor governed in the church, 
who was a layman. And therefore it is false 
which they charge the bishops with, that they 
challenge sole jurisdiction. For the bishop 
can no more put out the chancellor than the 
chancellor the bishop. They were many of 
them made chancellors for their lives ; and he 
is the fittest man to govern, because Divinity 
so overwhelms the rest. 

CHANGING SIDES. 

1. It is the trial of a man to see if he will 
change his side; and if he be so weak as to 



TABLE TALK. 27 

change once, he will change again. Your 
country fellows have a way to try if a man 
be weak in the hams, by coming behind him, 
and giving him a blow unawares ; if he bend 
once, he will bend again. 

2. The lords that fall from the king after 
they have got estates by base flattery at court, 
and now pretend conscience, do as a vintner, 
that when he first sets up, you may bring 
your wench to his house, and do your things 
there, but when he grows rich he turns con- 
scientious, and will sell no wine upon the 
Sabbath-day. 

3. Colonel Goring serving first the one side 
and then the other, did like a good miller that 
knows how to grind which way soever the 
wind sits. 

4. After Luther had made a combustion in 
Germany about religion, he was sent to by 
the pope, to be taken off, and offered any 
preferment in the church, that he would make 
choice of. Luther answered, if he had offered 
half as much at first, he would have accepted 
it, but now he had gone so far he could not 
come back ; in truth he had made himself a 
greater thing than they could make him ; the 
German princes courted him, he was become 
the author of a sect ever after to be called 



2tt TABLE TALK. 

Lutherans. So have our preachers done that 
are against the bishops, they have made them- 
selves greater with the people than they can 
be made the other way, and therefore there 
is the less charity probably in bringing them 
off. Charity to strangers is enjoined in the 
text. By strangers is there understood those 
that are not of our own kin, strangers to your 
blood, not those you cannot tell whence they 
come; that is, be charitable to your neigh- 
bours whom you know to be honest poor 
people. 

CHRISTMAS. 

1. Christmas succeeds the Saturnalia, 
the same time, the same number of holy days, 
then the master waited upon the servant like 
the lord of mis-rule. 

2. Our meats and our sports (much of them) 
have relation to church-works. The coffin of 
our Christmas pies, in shape long, is in imita- 
tion of the cratch; our choosing kings and 
queens oa Twelfth-night, hath reference to the 
three kings. So likewise our eating of fritters, 
whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, Jack 
of Lents, &c. they were all in imitation of 
church-works, emblems of martyrdom. Our 
tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter 



TABLE TALK. 29 

herbs : though at the same time it was always 
the fashion for a man to have a gammon of 
bacon, to show himself to be no Jew. 



CHRISTIANS. 

1. In the high church of Jerusalem, the 
Christians were but another sect of Jews, that 
did believe the Messias was come. To be 
called was nothing else but to become a Chris- 
tian, to have the name of a Christian, it being 
their own language; for amongst the Jews, 
when they made a doctor of law, it was said 
he was called. 

2. The Turks tell their people of a heaven 
where there is sensible pleasure, but of a hell 
where they shall suffer they do not know what. 
The Christians quite invert this order, they 
tell us of a hell where we shall feel sensible 
pain, but of a heaven where we shall enjoy 
we cannot tell what. 

3. Why did the Heathens object to the 
Christians, that they worship an ass's head ? 
you must know, that to a Heathen, a Jew and 
a Christian were all one, that they regarded 
him not, so he was not one of them. Now 
that of the ass's head might proceed from such 
a mistake as this : by the Jews' law all the 

d 2 



30 TABLE TALK. 

firstlings of cattle were to be offered to God, 
except a young ass, which was to be redeemed ; 
a Heathen being present, and seeing young 
calves and young lambs killed at their sacri- 
fices, only young asses redeemed, might very 
well think they had that silly beast in some 
high estimation, and thence might imagine 
they worshipped it as a god. 

CHURCH. 

1. Heretofore the kingdom let the church 
alone, let them do what they would, because 
they had something else to think of, viz. wars ; 
but now in time of peace, we begin to examine 
all things, will have nothing but what we like, 
grow dainty and wanton; just as in a family 
the heir uses to go a hunting, he never con- 
siders how his meal is dressed, takes a bit, 
and away ; but when he stays within, then he 
grows curious, he does not like this, nor he 
does not like that, he will have his meat 
dressed his own way, or peradventure he will 
dress it himself. 

2. It hath ever been the gain of the church, 
when the king will let the church have no 
power, to cry down the king and cry up the 
church : but when the church can make use 



TABLE TALK. 31 

of the king's power, then to bring all under 
the king's prerogative : the Catholics of Eng- 
land go one way, and the court clergy another. 

3. A glorious church is like a magnificent 
feast, there is all the variety that may be, but 
every one chooses out a dish or two that he 
likes, and lets the rest alone ; how glorious 
soever the church is, every one chooses out of 
it his own religion, by which he governs him- 
self and lets the rest alone. 

4. The laws of the church are most favour- 
able to the church, because they were the 
church's own making; as the heralds are the 
best gentlemen because they make their own 
pedigree. 

5. There is a question about that article, 
concerning the power of the church, whether 
these words (of having power in controversies 
of faith) were not stolen in, but it is most cer- 
tain they were in the book of articles that 
was confirmed, though in some editions they 
have been left out: but the article before tells 
you who the church is, not the clergy, but 
ccetus Jidelium. 

CHURCH OF ROME. 

1. Before a juggler's tricks are discovered 
we admire him, and give him money, but 



32 TABLE TALK. 

afterwards we care not for them; so it was 
before the discovery of the juggling of the 
church of Rome. 

2. Catholics say, we out of our charity, 
believe they of the church of Rome may be 
saved : but they do not believe so of us. 
Therefore their church is better according to 
ourselves; first, some of them no doubt be- 
lieve as well of us, as we do of them, but they 
must not say so ; besides is that an argument 
their church is better than ours, because it has 
less charity ? 

3. One of the church of Rome will not 
come to our prayers, does that agree he doth 
not like them? I would fain see a Catholic 
leave his dinner, because a nobleman's chap- 
lain says grace, nor haply would he leave the 
prayers of the church, if going to church 
w r ere not made a mark of distinction between 
a Protestant and a Papist. 

CHURCHES. 

1. The way coming into our great churches 
w as anciently at the west door, that men might 
see the altar, and all the church before them. 
The other doors were but posterns. 



TABLE TALK. 33 



CITY. 



1. What makes a city? Whether a bishop- 
rick or any of that nature ? Answ. It is ac- 
cording to the first charter which made them 
a corporation. If they are incorporated by 
name of civitas they are a city, if by the 
name of burgum, then they are a borough. 

2. The lord mayor of London by their first 
charter was to be presented to the king, in his 
absence to the lord chief justiciary of England, 
afterwards to the lord chancellor, now to the 
barons of the Exchequer; but still there was 
a reservation, that for their honour they should 
come once a year to the king, as they do still. 

CLERGY. 

1 . Though a clergyman have no faults of his 
own, yet the faults of the whole tribe shall be 
laid upon him, so that he shall be sure not to 
lack. 

2. The clergy would have us believe them 
against our own reason, as the woman would 
have had her husband against his own eyes : 
what ! will you believe your own eyes before 
your own sweet wife ? 

3. The condition of the clergy towards 
their prince, and the condition of the phy- 



34 TABLE TALK. 

sician is all one : the physicians tell the prince 
they have agric and rhubarb, good for him, 
and good for his subjects' bodies; upon this he 
gives them leave to use it, but if it prove 
naught, then away with it, they shall use it no 
more ; so the clergy tell the prince they have 
physic good for his soul, and good for the 
souls of his people; upon that he admits them : 
but when he finds by experience they both 
trouble him and his people, he will have no 
more to do with them. What is that to them or 
any body else if a king will not go to heaven ? 
4. A clergyman goes not a dram further 
than this, you ought to obey your prince in 
general ; if he does he is lost : how to obey 
him you must be informed by those whose 
profession it is to tell you. The parson of 
the Tower, a good discreet man, told Dr. 
Mosely, who was sent to me, and the rest of 
the gentlemen committed the third of Charles* 
to persuade us to submit to the king, that they 
found no such w-ords as parliament, habeas 
corpus, return, tower, &c. neither in the 
fathers, nor the school-men, nor in the text, 
and therefore for his part he believed he 
understood nothing of the business. A satire 
upon all those clergymen that meddle with 
matters they do not understand. 



TABLE TALK. 35 

All confess there never was a more learned 
clergy, no man taxes them with ignorance. 
But to talk of that, is like the fellow that was 
agreatwencher; he wished God would forgive 
him his lechery, and lay usury to his charge. 
The clergy have worse faults. 

6. The clergy and laity together are never 
like to do well; it is as if a man were to make 
an excellent feast and should have his apo- 
thecary and physician come into the kitchen : 
the cooks, if they were let alone, would make 
excellent meat; but then comes the apothecary 
and he puts rhubarb into one sauce, and agric 
into another sauce. Chain up the clergy on 
both sides. 

HIGH COMMISSION. 

1. Men cry out upon the high commission, as 
if the clergymen only had to do in it, when I 
believe there are more laymen in commission 
there than clergymen, if the laymen will not 
come, whose fault is that? So of the star- 
chamber, the people think the bishops only 
censured Prinne, Burton, and Bastwick, when 
there were but two there, and one spake not 
*n his own cause. 



36 TABLE TALK. 

HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

1. There be but two erroneous opinions in 
the house of commons, that the lords sit 
only for themselves, when the truth is, they 
sit as well for the commonwealth. The knights 
and burgesses sit for themselves and others, 
some for more, some for fewer, and what is 
the reason ? Because the room will not hold 
all : the lords being few, they all come, and 
imagine the room able to hold all the com- 
mons of England, then the lords and bur- 
gesses would sit no otherwise than the lords 
do. The second error is, that the house of 
commons are to begin to give subsidies, yet if 
the lords dissent they can give no money. 

2. The house of commons is called the 
lower house in twenty acts of parliament, but 
what are twenty acts of parliament amongst 
friends ? 

3. The form of a charge runs thus, I accuse 
in the name of all the commons of England, 
how then can any man be as a witness, when 
every man is made the accuser? 

CONFESSION. 

1 . In time of parliament it used to be one of 
the first things the house did, to petition the 



TABLE TALK. 37 

king that his confessor might be removed, as 
fearing either his power with the king, or else, 
lest he should reveal to the pope what the 
house was in doing, as no doubt he did, when 
the catholic cause was concerned. 

2. The difference between us and the Pa- 
pists is, we both allow contrition, but the 
Papists make confession a part of contrition ; 
they say a man is not sufficiently contrite till 
he confess his sins to a priest. 

3. Why should I think a priest will not 
reveal confession ? I am sure he will do any 
thing that is forbidden him, haply not so often 
as I. The utmost punishment is deprivation, 
and how can it be proved that ever any man 
revealed confession when there is no witness ? 
And no man can be witness in his own cause. 
A mere gullery. There was a time when it 
was public in the church, and that is much 
against their auricular confession. 

COMPETENCY. 

1. That which is a competency for one man, 
is not enough for another, no more than that 
which will keep one man warm, will keep 
another man warm ; one man can go in doub- 
let and hose, when another man cannot be 
E 



'3$ TABLE TALK. 

without a cloak, and jet have no more clothes 
than is necessary for him. 



GREAT CONJUNCTION. 

1. The greatest conjunction of Saturn and 
Jupiter happens but once in eight hundred 
years, and therefore astrologers can make no 
experiments of it, nor foretel what it means ; 
not but that the stars may mean something, 
but we cannot tell what, because we cannot 
come at them. Suppose a planet were a sim- 
ple, or an herb, how could a physician tell the 
virtue of that simple, unless he could come at 
it, to apply it? 

conscience. 

1. He that hath a scrupulous conscience, is 
like a horse that is not well weighed, he starts 
at every bird that flies out of the hedge. 

2. A knowing man will do that which a 
tender conscience man dares not do, by reason 
of his ignorance, the other knows there is no 
hurt; as a child is afraid to go into the dark, 
when a man is not, because he knows there is 
no danger. 

3. If we once come to leave that outloose, 
as to pretend conscience against law, who 



TABLE TALK. 39 

knows what inconvenience may follow? For 
thus, suppose an Anabaptist comes and tal^es 
my horse. I sue him. He tells me he did ac- 
cording to his conscience. His conscience 
tells him all things are common amongst the 
saints, what is mine is his ; therefore you do 
ill to make such a law. If any man takes 
another's horse, he shall be hanged. What 
can I say to this man ? He does according to 
his conscience. Why is not he as honest a 
man as he that pretends a ceremony established 
by law, is against his conscience ? Generally 
to pretend conscience against law is dangerous, 
in some cases haply we may. 

4. Some men make it a case of conscience, 
whether a man may have a pigeon-house, be- 
cause his pigeons eat other folks corn. But 
there is no such thing as conscience in the 
business : the matter is, whether he be a man 
of such quality, that the state allows him to 
have a dove-house ; if so, there's an end of the 
business ; his pigeons have aright to eat where 
they please themselves. 

CONSECRATED PLACES. 

1. The Jews had a peculiar way of conse- 
crating things to God, which we have not. 



40 TABLE TALK. 

2. Under the law, God, who was master 
of all, made choice of a temple to .worship in, 
where he was more especially present: just 
as the master of the house, who owns all the 
house, makes choice of one chamber to lie 
in, which is called the master's chamber. But 
under the Gospel there was no such thing, 
temples and churches are set apart for the 
conveniency of men to worship in ; they can- 
not meet upon the point of a needle, but God 
himself makes no choice. 

3. All things are God's already; we can 
give him no right by consecrating any that he 
had not before, only we set it apart to his 
service. Just as a gardener brings his lord 
and master a basket of apricots, and presents 
them, his lord thanks him, perhaps gives him 
something for his pains ; and yet the apricots 
were as much his lord's before as now. 

4. What is consecrated, is given to some 
particular man, to do God service; not given 
to God, but given to man, to serve God. And 
there is not any thing, lands or goods, but 
some men or other have it in their power to 
dispose of as they please. The saying things 
consecrated cannot be taken away, makes men 
afraid of consecration. 

5. Yet consecration has this power ; when 



TABLE TALK. 41 

a man has consecrated any thing to God, he 
cannot of himself take it away. 

CONTRACTS. 

1. If our fathers have lost their liberty, why 
may not we labour to regain it? Answ. We 
must look to the contract ; if that be rightly 
made, we must stand to it : if we once grant 
we may recede from contracts upon any in- 
conveniency that may afterwards happen, we 
shall have no bargain kept. If I sell you a 
horse, and do not like my bargain, I will 
have my horse again. 

2. Keep your contracts. So far a divine 
goes, but how to make our contracts is left to 
ourselves ; and as we agree upon the convey- 
ing of this house, or that land, so it must be. 
If you offer me a hundred pounds for my 
glove — I tell you what my glove is, a plain 
glove, pretend no virtue in it, the glove is my 
own; I profess not to sell gloves, and we 
agree for an hundred pounds, I do not know 
why I may not with a safe conscience take it. 
The want of that common obvious distinction 
ofjusprceceptivum, andjuspermissivum, does 
much trouble men. 

3. Lady Kent articled with Sir Edward 

E2 



4*2 TABLE TALK. 

Herbert, that he should come to her when 
she sent for him, and stay with her as long as 
she would have him; to which he set his 
hand: then he articled with her, that he 
should go. away when he pleased, and stay 
away as long as he pleased; to which she set 
her hand. This is the epitome of all the 
contracts in the world, betwixt man and man, 
betwixt prince and subject ; they keep them 
as long as they like them, and no longer. 

COUNCIL. 

They talk (but blasphemously enough) that 
the Holy Ghost is president of their general 
councils, when the truth is, the odd man is 
still the Holy Ghost. 

CONVOCATION. 

1. When the king sends his writ for a par- 
liament, he sends for two knights for a shire, 
and two burgesses for a corporation : but when 
he sends for two archbishops for a convoca- 
tion, he commands them to assemble the 
whole clergy ; but they out of custom amongst 
themselves send to the bishops of their pro- 
vinces, to will them to bring two clerks for a 



TABLE TALK. 43 

diocese, the dean, one for the chapter, and the 
archdeacons, but to the king every clergyman 
is there present. 

2. We have nothing so nearly expresses 
the power of a convocation, in respect of a 
parliament, as a court-lee t, where they have a 
power to make bye-laws, as they call them ; 
as that a man shall put so many cows or 
sheep in the common; but they can make 
nothing that is contrary to the laws of the 
kingdom. 

CREED. 

Athanastus's Creed is the shortest, take 
away the preface, and the force, and the con- 
clusion, which are not part of the creed. In 
the Nicene Creed it is tig £KK\ij(riav, I believe 
in the church ; but now, as our Common 
Prayer has it, I believe one catholic and 
apostolic church. They like not creeds, be- 
cause they would have no forms of faith, as 
they have none of prayer, though there be 
more reason for the one than for the other. 

damnation. 

1. If the physician sees you eat any thing 
that is not good for your body, to keep you 



44 TABLE TALK. 

from it, he cries, it is poison ; if the divine 
sees you do any thing that is hurtful for your 
soul, to keep you from it, he cries, you are 
damned. 

2. To preach long, loud, and damnation, is 
the way to be cried up. "We love a man that 
damns us, and we ran after him again to save 
us. If a man had a sore leg, and he should 
go to an honest judicious chirurgeon, and he 
should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint 
with such an oil, an oil well known, that 
would do the cure ; haply he would not much 
regard him, because he knows the medicine 
before-hand an ordinary medicine. But if he 
should go to a surgeon that should tell him, 
your leg will gangrene within three days, and 
it must be cut off, and you will die, unless 
you do something that I could tell you, what 
listening there would be to this man ! Oh, for 
the Lord's sake, tell me what this is, I will 
give you any content for your pains. 

devils. 

1. Why have we none possessed with devils 
in England? The old answer is, the Pro- 
testants the devil hath already, and the Pa- 
pists are so holy, he dares not meddle with 



TABLE TALK. 45 

them. Why then, beyond seas, where a nun 
is possessed, when a Hugonot comes into the 
church, does not the devil hunt them out? 
The priest teaches him, you never saw the 
devil throw up a nun's coats, mark that, the 
priest will not suffer it, for then the people 
will spit at him. 

2. Casting out devils is mere juggling; they 
never cast out any but what they first cast in. 
They do it where for reverence no man shall 
dare to examine it, they do it in a corner, in 
a mortice-hole, not in the market-place. They 
do nothing but what may be done by art; 
they make the devil fly out of the window in 
the likeness of a bat, or a rat. Why do they 
not hold him ? Why, in the likeness of a bat, 
or a rat, or some creature? That is, why not 
in some shape we paint him in, with claws 
and horns? By this trick they gain much, 
gain upon men's fancies, and so are reve- 
renced ; and certainly if the priest deliver me 
from him, that is my most deadly enemy, I 
have all the reason in the world to reverence 
him. Objection. But if this be juggling, why 
do they punish impostures ? Answ. For great 
reason, because they do not play their part 
well, and for fear others should discover them ; 



46 TABLE TALK. 

and so all of them ought to be of the same 
trade. 

3. A person of quality came to my chamber 
in the Temple, and told me he bad two devils 
in his head (I wondered what he meant), and 
just at that time, one of them bid him kill me 
(with that I begun to be afraid, and thought 
he was mad); he said he knew I could cure 
him, and therefore entreated me to give him 
something, for he w T as resolved he would go 
to nobody else. I perceiving what an opinion 
he had of me, and that it was only melan- 
choly that troubled him, took him in hand, 
warranted him, if he would follow my direc- 
tions, to cure him in a short time. I desired 
him to let me be alone about an hour, and 
then to come again, which he was very willing 
to. In the mean time I got a card, and 
wrapped it up handsome in a piece of taffeta, 
and put strings to the taffeta, and when he 
came gave it to him, to hang about his neck, 
withal charged him, that he should not dis- 
order himself neither with eating or drinking, 
but eat very little of supper, and say his 
prayers duly when he went to bed ; and I 
made no question but he would be well in 
three or four days. Within that time I went 



TABLE TALK. 47 

to dinner to his house, and asked him how he 
did? He said he was much better, but not 
perfectly well, or in truth, he had not dealt 
clearly with me; he had four derils in his 
head, and he perceived two of them were 
gone, with that which I had given him, but 
the other two troubled him still. Well, said 
I, I am glad two of them are gone, I make 
no doubt but to get away the other two like- 
wise. So I gave him another thing to hang 
about his neck. Three days after he came to 
me to my chamber, and professed he was now 
as well as ever he was in his life, and did 
extremely thank me for the great care T had 
taken of him. I, fearing lest he might relapse 
into the like distemper, told him that there 
was none but myself, and one physician more 
in the whole town that could cure the devils 
in the head, and that was Dr. Harvey (whom 
I had prepared), and wished him, if ever he 
found himself ill in my absence, to go to him, 
for he could cure his disease as well as myself. 
The gentleman lived many years, and was 
never troubled after. 

SELF DENTAL. 

It is much the doctrine of the times that men 
should not please themselves, but deny them- 



48 TABLE TALK. 

selves every thing they take delight in ; not 
look upon beauty, wear no good clothes, eat 
no good meat, &c. which seems the greatest 
accusation that can be upon the Maker of all 
good things. If they be not to be used, why 
did God make them? The truth is, they that 
preach against them, cannot make use of them 
themselves; and then again they get esteem 
by seeming to contemn them. But mark it 
while you live, if they do not please them- 
selves as much as they can ; and we live more 
by example than precept. 

DUEL. 

1. A duel may still be granted in some 
cases by the law of England, and only there. 
That the church allowed it anciently, appears 
by this, in their public liturgies, there were 
prayers appointed for the duelists to say; the 
judge used to bid them go to such a church 
and pray, &c. But whether is this lawful? 
If you grant any war lawful, I make no 
doubt but to convince it. War is lawful, be- 
cause God is the only judge between two, 
that is supreme. Now, if a difference happen 
between two subjects, and it cannot be de- 
cided by human testimony, why may they 



TABLE TALK. 49 

not put it to God to judge between them by 
the permission of the prince ? Nay, what if 
we should bring it down for argument's sake, 
to the swordmen. One gives me the lie; it is 
a great disgrace to take it ; the law has made 
no provision to give remedy for the injury 
(if you can suppose any thing an injury for 
which the law gives no remedy) ; why am 
not I in this case supreme, and may therefore 
right myself? 

2. A duke ought to fight with a gentleman. 
The reason is this : the gentleman will say to 
the duke, It is true, you hold a higher place 
in the state than I ; there is a great distance 
between you and me, but your dignity does 
not privilege you to do me an injury ; as soon 
as ever you do me an injury, you make your- 
self my equal, and as you are my equal I 
challenge you; and in sense the duke is bound 
to answer him. This will give you some light 
to understand the quarrel betwixt a prince 
and his subjects : though there be a vast dis- 
tance between him and them, and they are to 
obey him, according to their contract, yet he 
hath no power to do them an injury; then 
they think themselves as much bound to vin- 
dicate their right, as they are to obey his 

F 



50 TABLE TALK. 

lawful commands, nor is there any other 
measure of justice left upon earth but arms. 

EPITAPH. 

An epitaph must be made fit for the person 
for whom it is made ; for a man to say all the 
excelleut things, that can be said upon one, 
and call that his epitaph, is as if a painter 
should make the handsomest piece he can 
possibly make, and say it was my picture. 
It holds in a funeral sermon. 



EQUITY. 

1. Equity in law is the same that the spirit 
is in religion, what every one pleases to make 
it; sometimes they go according to conscience, 
sometimes according to law, sometimes ac- 
cording to the rule of court. 

2. Equity is a roguish thing ; for law we 
have a measure, know what to trust to ; equity 
is according to the conscience of him that is 
chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, 
so is equity. It is all one as if they should 
make the standard for the measure, we call a 
foot, a chancellor's foot, what an uncertain 



TABLE TALK. 51 

measure would this be ? One chancellor has a 
long foot, another a short foot, a third an 
indifferent foot: it is the same thing in the 
chancellor's conscience. 

3. That saying, Do as you would he done 
to, is often misunderstood, for it is not thus 
meant, that I, a private man, should do to you 
a private man, as I would have you do to me, 
but do as we have agreed to do one to 
another by public agreement. If the prisoner 
should ask the judge, whether he would be 
content to be hanged, were he in his case, he 
would answer, no. Then, says the prisoner, 
do as you would be done to; neither of them 
must do as private men, but the judge must 
do by him as they have publicly agreed; that 
is, both judge and prisoner have consented 
to a law, that if either of them steal, they 
shall be hanged. 

EVIL SPEAKING. 

1. He that speaks ill of another, commonly 
before he is aware, makes himself such a one 
as he speaks against; for if he had civility or 
breeding he would forbear such kind of lan- 
guage. 

2. A gallant man is above ill words: an 



H TABLE TALK. 

example we have in the old Lord of Salisbury, 
who was a great wise man. Stone had called 
some lord about court, fool. The lord com- 
plains and has Stone whipped. Stone cries, 
T might have called my Lord of Salisbury 
fool often enough, before he would have had 
me whipped. 

3. Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather 
give him good words, that he may use yoa 
the better, if you chance to fall into his hands. 
The Spaniard did this when he was dying; 
his confessor told him, to work him to re- 
pentance, how the devil tormented the wicked 
that went to hell: the Spaniard replying, 
called the devil my lord. I hope, my lord 
the devil is not so cruel; his confessor re- 
proved him. Excuse me, said the Don, for 
calling him so, I know not into what hands I 
may fall; and if I happen into his, I hope he 
will use me the better for giving him good 
words. 

EXCOMMUNICATION. 

1. That place they bring for excommuni- 
cation (put away from among yourselves that 
wicked person, 1 Cor. v. 13.), is corrupted in 
the Greek, for it should be, to irovripuv, put 
away that evil from among you; not tov 



TABLE TALK. 53 

vovifpiov, that evil person; besides 6 irovtipai; 
is the devil in Scripture, and it may be so 
taken there; and there is a new edition of 
Theoderet come out, that has it right to 
TTovvpwv. It is true the Christians, before the 
civil state became Christian, did by covenant 
and agreement set down how they should live; 
and he that did not observe what they agreed 
upon, should come no more amongst them; 
that is, be excommunicated. Such men are 
spoken of by the apostle, Rom. i. 31, whom 
he calls dfroyderog ical daojovcoig, the Vulgate 
has it, incomposit, et sine fcedre ; the last word 
is pretty well, but the first not at all. Origen, 
in his book against Celsus, speaks of the 
Christians gvOeikt] : the translation renders it 
conventus, as it signifies a meeting; when it 
is plain it signifies a covenant ; and the English 
Bible turned the other word well, covenant- 
breakers. Pliny tells us, the Christians took 
an oath amongst themselves to live thus and 
thus. 

2. The other place (die ecclesice), tell the 
church, is but a weak ground to raise excom- 
munication upon, especially from the sacra- 
ment ; the lesser excommunication, since when 
that was spoken, the sacrament was instituted. 
The Jews ecclesia was their sanhedrim, their 
F 2 



54 TABLE TALK. 

court ; so that the meaning is, if after once or 
twice admonition this brother will not be 
reclaimed, bring him thither. 

3. The first excommunication was one hun- 
dred and eighty years after Christ, and that 
by Victor, bishop of Rome. But that was 
no more than this, that they should com- 
municate and receive the sacrament amongst 
themselves, not with those of the other 
opinion : the controversy, as I take it, being 
about the feast of Easter. Men do not care 
for excommunication because they are shut 
out of the church, or delivered up to Satan, 
but because the law of the kingdom takes 
hold of them ; after so many days a man can- 
not sue, no, not for his wife, if you take her 
from him ; and there may be as much reason, 
to grant it for a small fault, if there be con- 
tumacy, as for a great one; in Westminster 
Hall you may outlaw a man for forty shillings, 
which is their excommunication, and you can 
do no more for forty thousand pound. 

4. When Cons tan tine became Christian, he 
so fell in love with the clergy, that he let them 
be judges of all things; but that continued 
not above three or four years, by reason they 
were to be judges of matters they understood 
not, and then they were allowed to meddle 



TABLE TALK, 55 

with nothing but religion; all jurisdiction be- 
longed to him, and he scanted them out as 
much as he pleased ; and so things have since 
continued. They excommunicate for three 
or four things, matters concerning adultery, 
tithes, wills, &c. which is the civil punishment 
the state allows for such faults. If a bishop 
excommunicate a man for what he ought not, 
the judge has power to absolve, and punish 
, the bishop. If they had that jurisdiction from 
God, why does not the church excommuni- 
cate for murder, for theft ? If the civil power 
might take away all but three things, why 
may they not take them away too? If this 
excommunication were taken away, the pres- 
byters would be quiet; it is that they have a 
mind to, it is that they would fain be at, like 
the wench that was to be married ; she asked 
her mother when it was done, if she should 
go to bed presently? No, says her mother, 
you must dine first. And then to bed mother ? 
No, you must dance after dinner. And then 
to bed mother? No, you must go to supper. 
And then to bed mother ? &c. 

FAITH AND WORKS. 

1. It was an unhappy division that has been 
made between faith and works, though in my 



56 TABLE TALK. 

intellect I may divide them: just as in the 
candle, I know there is both light and heat. 
But yet put out the candle, and they are both 
gone, one remains not without the other : so 
it is betwixt faith and works; nay, in a right 
conception, fides est opus, if I believe a thing 
because I am commanded, that is opus. 

FASTING DAYS. 

1. What the church debars us one day, she 
gives us leave to take out in another. First 
we fast, and then we feast; first there is a 
carnival, and then a Lent. 

2. Whether do human laws bind the con- 
science ? If they do, it is a way to ensnare : 
if we say they do not, we open the door to 
disobedience. Answ. In this case we must 
look to the justice of the law, and intention 
of the lawgiver. If there be no justice in the 
Jaw, it is not to be obeyed; if the intention 
of the law-giver be absolute, our obedience 
must be so too. If the intention of the law- 
giver enjoin a penalty as a compensation for 
the breach of the law, I sin not if I submit 
to the penalty; if it enjoin a penalty, as a 
further enforcement of obedience to the law, 
then ought I to observe it, which may be 



TABLE TALK. 57 

knowii by the often repetition of the law. 
The way of fasting is enjoined unto them, 
who yet do not observe it. The law enjoins 
a penalty as an enforcement to obedience; 
which intention appears by the often calling 
upon us to keep that law by the king, and the 
dispensation of the church to such as are not 
able to keep it, as young children, old folks, 
diseased men, &c. 

FATHERS AND SONS. 

It hath ever been the way for fathers, to bind 
their sons: to strengthen this by the law of 
the land, every one at twelve years of age, is 
to take the oath of allegiance in court-leets, 
whereby he swears obedience to the king. 

FINES. 

The old law was, that when a man was fined, 
he was to be fined salvo contenemento, so as 
his countenance might be safe ; taking coun- 
tenance in the same sense as your countryman 
does, when he says, if you will come unto my 
house, I will show you the best countenance 
I can, that is not the best face, but the best 
entertainment. The meaning of the law was, 



.58 TABLE TALK. 

that so much should be taken from a man, 
such a gobbet sliced off, that yet notwithstand- 
ing he might live in the same rank and con- 
dition he lived in before ; but now they fine 
men ten times more than they are worth, 

FREE WILL. 

The Puritans who will allow no free will at 
all, but God does all, yet will allow the sub- 
ject his liberty to do, or not to do, notwith- 
standing the king, the god upon eartb. The 
Arminians, who hold we have free will, yet 
say, when we come to the king, there must be 
all obedience, and no liberty to be stood for. 

FRIARS. 

1. The friars say they possess nothing; whose 
then are the lands they hold ? Not their supe- 
riors, he hath vowed poverty as well as they : 
whose then? To answer this, it was decreed 
tliey should say they were the pope's. And 
why must the friars be more perfect than the 
pope himself? 

2. If there had been no friars, Christendom 
might have continued quiet, and things re- 
mained at a stav. 



TABLE TALK. 59 

3. If there had been no lecturers (which 
succeed the friars in their way) the church of 
England might have stood, and flourished at 
this day. 

FRIENDS. 

Old friends are best. King James used to 
call for his old shoes : they were easiest for 
his feet. 

GENEALOGY OF CHRIST. 

1. They that say the reason why Joseph's 
pedigree is set down, and not Mary's, is, 
because the descent from the mother is lost, 
and swallowed up, say something ; but yet if 
a Jewish woman, married with a Gentile, they 
only took notice of the mother, not of the 
father; but they that say they were both of a 
tribe, say nothing ; for the tribes might marry 
one with another, and the law against it was 
only temporary, in the time while Joshua was 
dividing the land, lest the being so long about 
it, there might be a confusion. 

2. That Christ was the Son of Joseph is 
most exactly true. For though he was the 
Son of God, yet with the Jews, if any man 
kept a child, and brought him up, and called 
him son, he was taken for his son; and his 



60 TABLE TALK. 

land (if he had any) was to descend upon 
him; and therefore the genealogy of Joseph 
is justly set down. 

GENTLEMEN. 

1. What a gentleman is, it is hard with us to 
define. In other countries he is known by his 
privileges ; in Westminster Hall, he is one 
that is reputed one ; in the Court of Honour, 
he that hath arms. The king cannot make a 
gentleman of blood (what have you said), nor 
God Almighty, but he can make a gentleman 
bj creation. If you ask which is the better 
of these two? civilly, the gentleman of blood ; 
morally, the gentleman by creation may be 
the better ; for the other may be a debauched 
man, this a person of worth. 

2. Gentlemen have ever been more tem- 
perate in their religion than the common peo- 
ple, as having more reason, the others running 
in a hurry. In the beginning of Christianity, 
the fathers writ contra gentes, and contra 
Gentiles, they were all one : but after all were 
Christians, the better sort of people still re- 
tained the name of Gentiles, throughout the 
four provinces of the Roman empire ; as 
yentilkomme in French, gcntilkuomo in Italian, 



TABLE TALK. 61 

gentilhombre in Spanish, and gentleman in 
English. And they, no question, being per- 
sons of quality, kept up those feasts which we 
borrow from the Gentiles ; as Christmas, Can- 
dlemas, May-day, &c. continuing what was 
not directly against Christianity, which the 
common people would never have endured. 

GOLD. 

There are two reasons why these words 
Jesus autern transiens per medium eorum ibat, 
were about our old gold : the one is, because 
Riply the alchymist, when he made gold in 
the Tower, the first time he found it, he spoke 
these words, per medium eorum, that is, per 
medium ignis, et sulphuris. The other, be- 
cause these words were thought to be a charm ; 
and that they did bind whatsoever they were 
written upon, so that a man could not take it 
away. To this reason I rather incline. 

HALL. 

The hall was the place where the great lord 
used to eat, wherefore else were the halls 
made so big? Where he saw all his servants 
and tenants about him. He eat not in private, 

G 



62 TABLE TALK. 

except in time of sickness; when once he 
became a thing cooped up, all his greatness 
was spoiled. Nay, the king himself used to 
eat in the hall, and his lords sat with him, 
and then he understood men. 



HELL. 

1. There are two texts for Christ's descend- 
ing into hell : the one Psalm xvi., the other 
Acts ii., where the Bible that was in use 
when the Thirty-nine Articles were made has 
it hell. But the Bible that was in queen 
Elizabeth's time, when the articles were con- 
firmed, reads it grave; and so it continued 
till the New Translation in king James's time, 
and then it is hell again. But by this we 
may gather the church of England declined, 
as much as they could, the descent, otherwise 
they never would have altered the Bible. 

2. He descended into hell, this may be the 
interpretation of it. He may be dead and 
buried, then his soul ascended into heaven. 
Aftewards he descended again into hell, that 
is, into the grave, to fetch his body, and to 
rise again. The ground of this interpretation 
is taken from the Platonic learning, who held 
a metempsychosis ; and when a soul did de- 



TABLE TALK. 63 

scend from heaven to take another body, they 
called it Kara (idaiv its dcrjv, taking cicrjs, for 
the lower world, the state of mortality. Now 
the first Christians many of them were Pla- 
tonic philosophers, and no question spake 
such language as then was understood amongst 
them. To understand by hell the grave is no 
tautology, because the creed first tells what 
Christ suffered, he was crucified, dead, and 
buried; then it tells us what he did, he de- 
scended into hell, the third day he rose again, 
he ascended, fyc. 

HOLY DAYS. 

They say the church imposes holy days; 
there is no such thing, though the number of 
holy days is set down in some of our Com- 
mon Prayer Books. Yet that has relation to 
an act of parliament, which forbids the keep- 
ing of any holy days in time of popery; but 
those that are kept, are kept by the custom of 
the country, and I hope you will not say the 
church imposes that. 

HUMILITY. 

1. Humility is a virtue all preach, none 
practise, and yet every body is content to hear. 



64 TABLE TALK. 

The master thinks it good doctrine for his 
servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy 
for the laity. 

2. There is kumilitas qucedam in vitio. If 
a man does not take notice of that excellency 
and perfection that is in himself, how can he 
be thankful to God, who is the author of all 
excellency and perfection? Nay, if a man 
hath too mean an opinion of himself, it will 
render him unserviceable both to God and 
man. 

3. Pride may be allowed to this or that 
degree, else a man cannot keep up his dignity. 
In gluttons there must be eating, in drunken- 
ness there must be drinking; it is not the 
eating, nor it is not the drinking that is to be 
blamed, but the excess. So in pride. 

IDOLATRY. 

Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not 
in the opinion of another. Put case, I bow 
to the altar, why am I guilty of idolatry, 
because a stander by thinks so ? I am sure I 
do not believe the altar to be God, and the 
God I worship may be bowed to in all places, 
and at all times. 



TABLE TALK. 65 



JEWS. 



1. God at the first gave laws to all mankind, 
but afterwards he gave peculiar laws to the 
Jews, which they were only to observe. Just 
as we have the common law for all England, 
and yet you have some corporations, that, 
besides that, have peculiar laws and privileges 
to themselves. 

2. Talk what you will of the Jews, that 
they are cursed, they thrive wherever they 
come ; they are able to oblige the prince of 
their country by lending him money ; none of 
them beg, they keep together, and for their 
being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate 
one another as much. 

INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE. 

It is all one to me if I am told of Christ, or 
some mystery of Christianity, if I am not 
capable of understanding, as if I am not told 
at all, my ignorance is as invincible; and 
therefore it is vain to call their ignorance only 
invincible, who never were told of Christ. 
The trick of it is to advance the priest, whilst 
the church of Rome says a man must be told 
of Christ, by one thus and thus ordained. 
g 2 



66 TABLE TALK. 

IMAGES. 

1. The Papists taking away the second, is 
not haply so horrid a thing, nor so unreason- 
able amongst Christians as we make it. For 
the Jews could make no figure of God, but 
they must commit idolatry, because he had 
taken no shape; but since the assumption of 
oar flesh, we know r what shape to picture God 
in. Nor do I know why we may not make 
his image, provided we be sure what it is: as 
we say St. Luke took the picture of the 
Virgin Mary, and St. Veronica of our Sa- 
viour. Otherwise it would be no honour to 
the king to make a picture, and call it the 
king's picture, when it is nothing like him. 

2. Though the learned Papists pray not to 
images, yet it is to be feared the ignorant do ; 
as appears by that story of St. Nicholas in 
Spain. A countryman used to offer daily to 
St. Nicholas's image; at length by mischance 
the image was broken, and a new one made 
of his own plum-tree; after that the man 
forbore. Being complained of to his ordinary, 
he answered, it is true, he used to offer to the 
old image, but to the new he could not find 
in his heart, because he knew it was a piece 
of his own plum-tree. You see what opinion 



TABLE TALK. 67 

this man had of the image ; and to this tended 
the bowing of their images, the twinkling of 
their eyes, the Virgin's milk, &c. Had they 
only meant representations, a picture would 
have done as well as these tricks. It may 
be with us in England they do not worship 
images, because living amongst Protestants, 
they are either laughed out of it, or beaten 
out of it by shock of argument. 

3. It is a discreet way concerning pictures 
in churches, to set up no new, nor to pull 
down no old. 

IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONS. 

They say imperial constitutions did only 
confirm the canons of the church; but that is 
not so, for they inflicted punishment, when 
the canons never did ; viz. if a man converted 
a Christian to be a Jew, he was to forfeit his 
estate, and lose his life. In Valentine's Novels 
it is said, Constat episcopus forum legibus non 
habere, etjudicanf tantum de religione. 

IMPRISONMENT. 

Sir Kenelme Digby was several times taken 
and let go again, at last imprisoned in Win- 



68 TABLE TALK. 

Chester House. I can compare him to nothing 
but a great fish that we catch and let go 
again, but still he will come to the bait; at 
last, therefore, we put him into some great 
pond for store. 

INCENDIARIES. 

Fancy to yourself a man sets the city on 
fire at Cripplegate, and that fire continues by 
means of others, till it come to Whitefriars, 
and then he that began it would fain quench 
it; does not he deserve to be punished most 
that first set the city on fire ? So it is with the 
incendiaries of the state. They that first set 
it on fire (by monopolizing, forest business, 
imprisoning parliament men, tertio Caroli, 
&c), are now become regenerate, and would 
fain quench the fire ; certainly they deserved 
most to be punished, for being the first cause 
of our distractions. 

independency. 

1. Independency is in use at Amsterdam, 
where forty churches or congregations have 
nothing to do one with another. And it is 
no question agreeable to the primitive times, 



TABLE TALK. 69 

before the Emperor became Christian. For 
either we must say every church governed 
itself, or else we must fall upon that old 
foolish rock, that St. Peter and his successors 
governed all ; but when the civil state became 
Christian, they appointed who should govern 
them, before they governed by agreement and 
consent. If you will not do this, you shall 
come no more amongst us ; but both the In- 
dependent man, and the Presbyterian man, 
do equally exclude the civil power, though 
after a different manner. 

2. The Independent may as well plead, 
they should not be subject to temporal things, 
not come before a constable, or a justice of 
peace, as they plead they should not be sub- 
ject in spiritual things ; because St. Paul says, 
Is it so, that there is not a wise man amongst 
you ? 

3. The pope challenges all churches to be 
under him; the king and the two archbishops 
challenge all the church of England to be 
under them. The Presbyterian man divides 
the kingdom into as many churches as there 
be presbyteries, and your Independent would 
have every congregation a church by itself, 



70 TABLE TALK. 

THINGS INDIFFERENT. 

In time of a parliament, when things are 
under debate, they are indifferent, but in a 
church or state settled, there is nothing left 
indifferent. 

PUBLIC INTEREST. 

All might go well in the commonwealth, if 
every % one in the parliament would lay down 
his own interest, and aim at the general good. 
If a man were sick, and the whole college of 
physicians should come to him, and administer 
severally, haply so long -as they observed the 
rules of art he might recover; but if one of 
them had a great deal of scammony by him, 
he must put off that, therefore he prescribes 
scammony. Another had a great deal of 
rhubarb, and he must put off that, and there- 
fore he prescribes rhubarb, &c. ; they would 
certainly kill the man. We destroy the com- 
monwealth, while we preserve our own pri- 
vate interests, and neglect the public. 

HUMAN INVENTION. 

1. You say there must be no human invention 
in the church, nothing but the pure word. 



TABLE TALK. 71 

Answ. If I give any exposition, but what is 
expressed in the text, that is my invention : 
if you give another exposition, that is your 
invention, and both are human. For example, 
suppose the word egg were in the text, I say, 
it is meant an hen-egg ; you say, a goose-egg. 
Neither of these are expressed, therefore they 
are human invention; and I am sure the 
newer the invention the worse, old inventions 
are best. 

2. If we must admit nothing but what we 
read in the Bible, what will become of the 
parliament ? For we do not read of that there. 

JUDGMENTS. 

We cannot tell what is a judgment of God, 
it is presumption to take upon us to know. 
In time of plague we know we want health, 
and therefore we pray to God to give us health ; 
in time of war we know we want peace, and 
therefore we pray to God to give us peace. 
Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a 
man for something in him we cannot abide. 
An example we have in king James, concern- 
ing the death of Henry the Fourth of France ; 
one said he was killed for his wenching, 
another said he was killed for turning his 



72 TABLE TALK. 

religion. No, says king James (who could 
not abide fighting), he was killed for permit- 
ting duels in his kingdom. 

JUDGE. 

1. We see the pageants in Cheapside, the 
lions, and the elephants, but we do not see 
the men that carry them; we see tne judges 
look big, look like lions, but we do not see 
who moves them. 

2. Little things do great works, when great 
things will not. If I should take a pin from 
the ground, a little pair of tongs will do it, 
■when a great pair will not. Go to a judge to 
do a business for you, by no means he will 
not hear of it; but go to some small servant 
about him, and he will dispatch it according 
to your heart's desire. 

3. There could be no mischief done in the 
commonwealth without a judge. Though there 
be false dice brought in at the groom-porters, 
and cheating offered, yet unless he allow the 
cheating, and judge the dice to be good, there 
may be hopes of fair play. 

JUGGLING. 

It is not juggling that is to be blamed, but 
much juggling, for the world cannot be go- 



TABLE TALK. ' 73 

yerned without it. All your rhetoric, and all 
your elenchs in logic come within the compass 
of juggling. 

JURISDICTION. 

1. There is no such thing as spiritual j mis- 
diction, all is civil; the church's is the same 
with the lord major's. Suppose a Christian 
came into a Pagan country, how can you 
fancy he shall have any power there? He 
finds faults with the gods of the country ; well, 
they will put him to death for it ; when he is 
a martyr, what follows? Does that argue he 
has any spiritual jurisdiction? If the clergy 
say the church ought to be governed thus, and 
thus, by the word of God, that is doctrine all, 
that is not discipline. 

2. The pope he challenges jurisdiction over 
all, the bishops they pretend to it as well as 
he, the presbyterians they would have it to 
themselves; but over whom is all this? The 
poor laymen. 

jus DIVINUM. 

1. All things are held by jus divlnum> either 
immediately or mediately. 

2. Nothing has lost the pope so much in 
his supremacy, as not acknowledging what 

H 



74 TABLE TALK. 

princes gave him. It is a scorn upon the 
civil power, and an unthankfulness in the 
priest. But the church runs to jus divinum, 
lest if they should acknowledge what they 
have they have by positive law, it might be 
as well taken from them as given to them. 

KING. 

1. A king is a thing men have made for 
their own sakes, for quietness sake. Just as 
in a family one man is appointed to buy the 
meat; if every man should buy, or if there 
were many buyers, they would never agree; 
one would buy what the other liked not, or 
what the other had bought before ; so there 
would be a confusion. But that charge being 
committed to one, he according to his discre- 
tion pleases all; if they have not what they 
would have one day, they shall have it the 
next, or something as good. 

2. The word king directs our eyes. Suppose 
it had been consul, or dictator, to think all 
kings alike is the same folly, as if a consul of 
Aleppo or Smyrna, should claim to himself 
the same power that a consul at Rome, What, 
am not I a consul? Or a duke of England 
should think himself like the duke of Flo- 



TABLE TALK. ?"> 

rence ; nor can it be imagined, that the word 
BaatXevg did signify the same in Greek, as 
the Hebrew word iVd did with the Jews. 
Besides, let the divines in their pulpits say 
what they will, they in their practice deny 
that all is the king's. They sue him, and so 
does all the nation, whereof they are a part. 
What matter is it then, what they preach or 
teach in the schools ? 

3. Kings are all individual, this or that 
king : there is no species of kings. 

4. A king that claims privileges in his own 
country, because they have them in another, 
is just as a cook, that claims fees in one lord's 
house, because they are allowed in another. 
If the master of the house will yield them, 
w r ell and good. 

5. The text, Render unto Ccesar the things 
that are Ccesar's, makes as much against kings, 
as for them, for it says plainly that some 
things are not Caesar's. But divines make 
choice of it, first in flattery, and then because 
of the other part adjoined to it, render unto 
God the things that are God's, where they 
bring in the church. 

6. A king outed of his country, that takes 
as much upon him as he did at home, in his 
own court, is as if a man on high, and I 



76 TABLE TALK. 

being upon the ground, used to lift up my 
voice to him, that he might hear me ; at length 
should come down, and then expects I should 
speak as loud to him as I did before. 

KING OF ENGLAND. 

1. The king can do no wrong; that is, no 
process can be granted against him; what 
must be done then? Petition him, and the 
king writes upon the petition soit droit fait, 
and sends it to the Chancery; and then the 
business is heard. His confessor will not tell 
him he can do no wrong. 

2. There is a great deal of difference be- 
tween head of the church, and supreme go- 
vernor, as our canons call the king. Conceive 
it thus : there is in the kingdom of England 
a college of physicians ; the king is supreme 
governor of those, but not head of them, nor 
president of the college, nor the best phy- 
sician. 

3. After the dissolution of abbies, they did 
not much advance the king's supremacy, for 
they only cared to exclude the pope ; hence 
have we had several translations of the Bible 
put upon us. But now we must look to it, 
otherwise the king may put upon us what 
religion he pleases. 



TABLE TALK. 77 

4. It was the old way when the king of 
England had his house, there were canons to 
sing service in his chapel ; so at Westminster, 
in St. Stephen's chapel, where the house of 
commons sits, from which canons the street 
called Canon-row has its name, because they 
lived there ; and he had also the abbot and 
his monks, and all these the king's house. 

5. The three estates are the lords temporal, 
the bishops are the clergy, and the commons, 
as some would have it (take heed of that); for 
then, if two agree, the third is involved, but 
he is king of the three estates. 

6. The king hath a seal in every court, and 
though the great seal be called sigillum Anglice, 
the great seal of England ; yet it is not be- 
cause it is the kingdom's seal, and not the 
king's, but to distinguish it from sigillum 
Hibernice, sigillum Scotice. 

7. The court of England is much altered. 
At a solemn dancing, first you had the grave 
measures, then the courantoes and the gal- 
Hards ; and this is kept up with ceremony. 
At length, to French-more, and the cushion- 
dance ; and then all the company dance, lord 
and groom, lady and kitchen-maid, no dis- 
tinction. So in our court, in queen Elizabeth's 
time, gravity and state were kept up. In king 

H 2 



78 TABLE TALK. 

James's time, things were pretty well. But in 
king Charles's time, there has been nothing 
but French-more and the cushion-dance, om- 
nium gatherum, tolly, polly, hoite-come-toite. 

THE KING. 

1. It is hard to make an accommodation 
between the king and the parliament. If you 
and I fell out about money— you said I owed 
you twenty pounds, I said I owed you but ten 
pounds — it may be, a third party, allowing me 
twenty marks, might make us friends. But 
if I said I owed you twenty pounds in silver, 
and you said I owed you twenty pound of 
diamonds, which is a sum innumerable, it is 
impossible we should ever agree. This is the 
case. 

2. The king using the house of commons, 
as he did in Mr. Pymm and his company, 
that is, charging them with treason, because 
they charged my lord of Canterbury and Sir 
George Ratcliff; it was just with as much 
logic as the boy, that would have lain with his 
grandmother, used to his father : You lay with 
my mother, why should not I lie with yours ? 

3. There is not the same reason for the 
king s accusing men of treason, and carrying 



TABLE TALK. 79 

them away, as there is for the houses them- 
selves, because they accuse one of themselves. 
For every one that is accused, is either a peer 
or a commoner, and he that is accused hath 
his consent going along with him; but if the 
king accuses, there is nothing of this in it. 

4. The king is equally abused now as be- 
fore: then they flattered him and made him 
do ill things; now they would force him 
against his conscience. If a physician should 
tell me, every thing I had a mind to was good 
for me, though in truth it was poison, he 
abused me ; and he abuses me as much, that 
would force me to take something whether I 
will or no. 

5. The king, so long as he is our king, may 
do with his officers what he pleases ; as the 
master of the house may turn away all his 
servants, and take whom he please. 

6. The king's oath is not security enough 
for our property, for he swears to govern 
according to law. Now the judges they in- 
terpret the law, and what judges can be made 
to do we know. 

7. The king and the parliament now falling 
out, are just as when there is foul play offered 
amongst gamesters: one snatches the other's 
stake, they seize what they can of one 



80 TABLE TALK. 

another's. It is not to be asked whether it 
belongs not to the king to do this or that: 
before, when there was fair play, it did. But 
now they will do what is most convenient for 
their own safety. If two fall to scuffling, 
one tears the other's band, the other tears his ; 
when they were friends they were quiet, and 
did no such thing; they let one another's bands 
alone. 

8. The king calling his friends from the 
parliament, because he had use of them at 
Oxford, is as if a man should have use of a 
litde piece of wood, and he runs down into 
the cellar, and takes the spigot; in the mean 
time all the beer runs about the house. When 
his friends are absent, the king will be lost. 

knights' service. 

Knights' service, in earnest, means nothing; 
for the lords are bound to wait upon the king 
when he goes to war with a foreign enemy, 
with, it may be, one man and one horse ; and 
he that doth not, is to be rated so much as 
shall seem good to the next parliament. And 
what will that be ? So it is for a private man, 
that holds of a gentleman. 



TABLE TALK. 81 



LAND. 



1. When men did let their land underfoot, 
the tenants would fight for their landlords, so 
that way they had their retribution; but now 
they will do nothing for them, may be the 
first, if but a constable bid them, that shall 
lay the landlord by the heels, and therefore 
it is vanity and folly not to take the full 
value. 

2. Allodium is a law word contrary to 
feudum, and it signifies land that holds of no- 
body. We have no such land in England. It 
is a true proposition, all the land in England 
is held, either immediately, or mediately of 
the king. 

LANGUAGE. 

1. To a living tongue new words may be 
added, but not to a dead tongue, as Latin, 
Greek, Hebrew, &c. 

2. Latimer is the corruption of Latiner, it 
signifies he that interprets Latin ; and though 
he interpreted French, Spanish, or Italian, he 
was called the king's Latiner, that is, the 
king's interpreter. 

3. If you look upon the language spoken 
in the Saxon time, and the language spoken 



82 TABLE TALK. 

now, you will find the difference to be just 
as if a man had a cloak that he wore plain in 
queen Elizabeth's days, and since, here has 
put in a piece of red, and there a piece of 
blue, and here a piece of green, and there a 
piece of orange tawny. We borrow words 
from the French, Italian, Latin, as every 
pedantic man pleases. 

4. We have more words than notions, half- 
a-dozen words for the same thing. Sometimes 
we put a new signification to an old word, as 
when we call a piece a gun. The word gun 
was in use in England for an engine to cast a 
thing from a man, long before there was any 
gunpowder found out. 

5. Words must be fitted to a man's mouth; 
it was well said of the fellow that was to 
make a speech for my lord mayor, he desired 
to take measure of his lordship's mouth. 

LAW, 

1. A MAN may plead not guilty, and yet tell 
no lie; for by the law no man is bound to 
accuse himself: so that when I say, not guilty, 
the meaning is, as if I should say by way of 
paraphrase, I am not so guilty as to tell you ; 
if you will bring me to a trial, and have me 



TABLE TALK. 83 

punished for this you lay to my charge, prove 
it against me. 

2. Ignorance of the law excuses no man ; 
not that all men know the law, but because it 
is an excuse every man will plead, and no 
man can tell how to confute him. 

3. The king of Spain was outlawed in 
Westminster Hall, I being of counsel against 
him. A merchant had recovered costs against 
him in a suit, which because he could not get, 
we advised to have him outlawed for not 
appearing, and so he was. As soon as Gon- 
dimer heard that, he presently sent the money, 
by reason, if his master had been outlawed, 
he could not have the benefit of the law; 
which would have been very prejudicial, there 
being then many suits depending betwixt the 
king of Spain and our English merchants. 

4. Every law is a contract between the king 
and the people, and therefore to be kept. An 
hundred men may owe me an hundred pounds, 
as well as any one man, and shall they not 
pay me because they are stronger than I? 
Object. Oh, but they lose all if they keep 
that law. Au&w. Let them look to the mak- 
ing of their bargain. If I sell my lands, and 
when I have done, one comes and tells me I 
have nothing else to keep me. I, and my 



84 TABLE TALK. 

wife, and children, must starve, if I part with 
my land. Must I not therefore let them have 
my land that have bought it and paid for it? 

5. The parliament may declare law, as well 
as any other inferior court may, viz. the 
King's Bench. In that or this particular case 
the King's Bench will declare unto you what 
the law is, but that binds nobody whom the 
case concerns : so the highest court, the par- 
liament may do ; but not declare law, that is, 
make law that was never heard of before. 

LAW OF NATURE. 

I cannot fancy to myself what the law of 
nature means, but the law of God. How 
should I know I ought not to steal, I ought 
not to commit adultery, unless f jebody had 
told me so ? Surely it is because I have been 
told so. It is not because I think I ought 
not to do them, nor because you think I ought 
not; if so, our minds might change. Whence 
then comes the restraint? From a higher 
power ; nothing else can bind. I cannot bind 
myself, for I may untie myself again; nor an 
equal cannot bind me, for we may untie one 
another. It must be a superior power, even 
God Almighty. If two of us make a bar- 



TABLE TALK. 85 

gain, why should either of us stand to it? 
What need you care what you say, or what 
need I care what I say ? Certainly, because 
there is something about me that tells me 
fides est servanda ; and if we after alter our 
minds, and make a new bargain, there is fides 
servanda there too. 

LEARNING. 

1. No man is the wiser for his learning : it 
may administer matter to work in, or objects 
to work upon, but wit and wisdom are born 
with a man. 

2. Most mens learning is nothing bat his- 
tory duly taken up. If I quote Thomas 
Aquinas for some tenet, and believe it, because 
the schookr ri0 ;i say so, that is but history. 
Few men make themselves masters of the 
things they write or speak. 

3. The Jesuits and the lawyers of France, 
and the low countrymen, have engrossed all 
learning. The rest of the world make nothing 
but homilies. 

4. It is observable, that in Athens, where 
the arts flourished, they were governed by a 
democracy. Learning made them think them- 

l 



86 TABLE TALK. 

selves as wise as any body, and they would 
govern as well as others ; and they spake as 
it were by way of contempt, that in the east 
and in the north they had kings, and why? 
Because the most part of them followed their 
business, and if some one man had made 
himself wiser than the rest, lie governed them, 
and they willingly submitted themselves to 
him. Aristotle makes the observation. And 
as in Athens the philosophers made the 
people knowing, and therefore they thought 
themselves wise enough to govern ; so does 
preaching with us, and that makes us affect a 
democracy. For upon these two grounds we 
all would be governors, either because we 
think ourselves as wise as the best, or because 
we think. ourselves the elect, and have the 
spirit, and the rest a company of reprobates 
that belong to the devil. 

LECTURERS. 

1. Lecturers do in a parish church what 
the friars did heretofore, get away not only 
the affections, but the bounty, that should be 
bestowed upon the minister. 

2. Lecturers get a great deal of money, 



TABLE TALK. 87 

because they preach the people tame, as a 
man watches a hawk, and then they do what 
they list with them. 

3. The lectures in Black friars, performed 
by officers of the army, tradesmen, and mi- 
nisters, is as if a great lord should make a 
feast, and he would have his cook dress one 
dish, and his coachman another, his porter a 
third, &c. 

LIBELS. 

Though some make slight of libels, yet you 
may see by them how the wind sits : as take 
a straw and throw it up into the air, you shall 
see by that which way the wind is, which you 
shall not do by casting up a stone. More 
solid things do not show the complexion of 
the times so well, as ballads and libels. 

LITURGY. 

1. There is no church without a liturgy, nor 
indeed can there be conveniently, as there is 
no school without a grammar. One scholar 
may be taught otherwise upon the stock of 
his acumen, but not a whole school. One or 
two that are piously disposed, may serve them- 



88 TABLE TALK. 

selves their own way, but hardly a whole 
nation. 

2. To know what was generally believed 
in all ages, the way is to consult the liturgies, 
not any private man's writing. As, if you 
would know how the church of England 
serves God, go to the Common Prayer 
Book, consult not this nor that man. Besides 
liturgies never compliment, nor use high ex- 
pressions. The fathers ofttimes speak ora- 
toriously. 

LORDS IN THE PARLIAMENT. 

1. The lords giving protections is a scorn 
upon them. A protection means nothing 
actively, but passively ; he that is a servant 
to a parliament man is thereby protected. 
What a scorn is it to a person of honour to 
put his hand to two lies at once, that such a 
man is my servant, and employed by me, 
when haply he never saw the man in his life, 
nor before never heard of him. 

2. The lords protesting is foolish. To pro- 
test is properly to save to a man's self some 
right. But to protest as the lords protest, 
when they themselves are involved, it is no 



TABLE TALK. 89 

more than if I should go into Smithfield, and 
sell my horse, and take the money ; and yet 
when I have your money, and you my horse, 
I should protest this horse is mine, because I 
love the horse, or I do not know why I do 
protest, because my opinion is contrary to the 
rest. Ridiculous, when they say the bishops 
did anciently protest, it was only dissenting, 
and that in the case of the pope. 

LORDS BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT. 

1. Great lords, by reason of their flatterers, 
are the first that know their own virtues, and 
the last that know their own vices. Some of 
them are ashamed upwards, because their 
ancestors were too great ; others are ashamed 
downwards, because they were too little. 

2. The prior of St. John of Jerusalem is 
said to be primus haro Anglice, the first baron 
of England, because being last of the spiritual 
barons, he chose to be first of the temporal. 
He was a kind of an otter, a knight half 
spiritual, and half temporal. 

3. Quest. Whether is every baron a baron 
of some place ? 

Answ. It is according to his patent. Of late 
years they have been made baron of some 
I 2 



90 TABLE TALK. 

place, but anciently not; called only by their 
sirname, or the sirname of some family, into 
which they have been married. 

4. The making of new lords lessens all the 
rest. It is in the business of lords, as it was 
with St. Nicholas's image: the countryman, 
you know, could not find in his heart to adore 
the new image, made of his own plumtree, 
though he had formerly worshipped the old 
one. The lords that are ancient we honour, 
because we know not whence they come ; but 
the new ones we slight, because we know 
their beginning. 

5. For the Irish lords to take upon them 
here in England, is as if the cook in the fair 
should come to my lady Kent's kitchen, and 
take upon him to roast the meat there, be- 
cause he is a cook in another place. 

MARRIAGE. 

1. Of all actions of a man's life, his marriage 
does least concern other people ; yet of all 
actions of our life it is most meddled with by 
other people. 

2. Marriage is nothing but a civil contract. 
It is true, it is an ordinance of God : so is 
every other contract; God commands me to 
keep it when I have made it. 



TABLE TALK. 9J 

3. Marriage is a desperate thing. The frogs 
in JEsop were extreme wise ; they had a great 
mind to some water, but they would not leap 
into the well, because they could not get out 
again. 

4. We single out particulars, and apply 
God's providence to them ; thus when two are 
married and have undone one another, they 
cry, It was God's providence we should come 
together, when God's providence does equally 
concur to every thing. 

MARRIAGE OF COUSIN-GERMANS. 

Some men forbear to marry cousin-germans 
out of this kind of scruple of conscience, 
because it was unlawful before, the Reforma- 
tion, and is still in the church of Rome. And 
so by reason their grandfather, or their great 
grandfather did not do it, upon that old score 
they think they ought not to do it; as some 
men forbear flesh upon Friday, not reflecting 
upon the statute, which with us makes it 
unlawful, but out of an old score, because the 
church of Rome forbids it, and their fore- 
fathers always forbore flesh upon that day. 
Others forbear it out of a natural considera- 
tion, because it is observed, for example, in 



92 TABLE TALK. 

beasts, if two couple of a near kind, the 
breed proves not so good. The same ob- 
servation they make in plants and trees, which 
degenerate being grafted upon the same stock. 
And it is also further observed, those matches 
between cousin-germans seldom prove for- 
tunate. But for the lawfulness there is no 
colour but cousin-germans in England may 
marry, both by the law of God and man: 
for with us we have reduced all the degrees 
of marriage to those in the Levitical law, and 
it is plain there is nothing against it. As for 
that that is said, cousin-germans once removed 
may not marry, and therefore being a further 
degree may not, it is presumed a nearer 
should not, no man can tell what it means. 

MEASURE OF THINGS. 

1. We measure from ourselves, and as things 
are for our use and purpose, so we approve 
them. Bring a pear to the table that is rotten, 
we cry it down, it is naught; but bring a 
medlar that is rotten, and it is a fine thing; 
and yet I'll warrant you the pear thinks as 
well of itself as the medlar does. 

2. We measure the excellency of other 
men, by some excellency we conceive to be 



TABLE TALK. Do 

in ourselves. Nash, a poet, poor enough, as 
poets used to be, seeing an alderman with his 
gold chain, upon his great horse, by way of 
scorn said to one of his companions, Do you 
see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he looks? 
why that fellow cannot make a blank verse. 

3. Nay, we measure the goodness of God 
from ourselves, we measure his goodness, his 
justice, his wisdom, by something we call just, 
good, or wise in ourselves ; and in so doing, 
we judge proportionably to the country fellow 
in the play, who said, if he were a king, he 
would live like a lord, and have pease and 
bacon every day, and a whip that cried 
slash. 

DIFFERENCE OF MEN. 

The difference of men is very great; you 
would scarce think them to be of the same 
species, and yet it consists more in the affec- 
tion than in the intellect. For as in the strength 
of body, two men shall be of an equal 
strength, yet one shall appear stronger than 
the other, because he exercises, and puts out 
his strength ; the other will not stir nor strain 
himself. So it is in the strength of the brain, 
the one endeavours, and strains, and labours, 
and studies; the other sits still, and is idle, 



&4 TABLE TALK. 

and takes no pains, and therefore he appears 
so much the inferior. 



MINISTER DIVINE. 

1. The imposition of hands upon the minister 
when all is done, will be nothing but a desig- 
nation of a person to this or that office, or 
employment in the church. It is a ridiculous 
phrase that of the canonists, confer re ordines; 
it is, coaptare aliquem in ordinem, to make a 
man one of us, one of our number, one of 
our order. So Cicero would understand what 
I said, it being a phrase borrowed from the 
Latines, and to be understood proportionably 
to what was amongst them. 

2. Those words you now use in making a 
minister, receive the Holy Ghost, Mere used 
amongst the Jews in making of a lawyer; 
from thence we have them, which is a vil- 
lanous key to something ; as if you would 
have some other kind of prefature than a 
mayoralty, and yet keep the same ceremony 
that >vas used in making the mayor. 

3. A priest has no such thing as an indeli- 
ble character; what difference do you find 
betwixt him and another man after ordination ? 
Only he is made a priest, as I said, by desig- 



TABLE TALK. 95 

nation : as a lawyer is called to the bar, then 
made a sergeant. All men that would get 
power over others, make themselves as unlike 
them as they can ; upon the same ground the 
priests made themselves unlike the laity. 

4. A minister when he is made is materia 
prima, apt for any form the state will put 
upon him, but of himself he can do nothing. 
Like a doctor of law in the university, he 
hath a great deal of law in him, but cannot 
use it till he be made somebody's chancellor ; 
or like a physician, before he be received into 
a house, he can give nobody physic; indeed 
after the master of the house hath given him 
charge of his servants, then he may. Or like 
a suffragan, that could do nothing but give 
orders, and yet he was no bishop. 

5. A minister should preach according to 
the articles of religion established in the 
church where he is. To be a civil lawyer let 
a man read Justinian, and the body of the 
law, to confirm his brain to that way; but 
when he comes to practice, he must make use 
of it so far as it concerns the law received in 
his own country. To be a physician, let a 
man read Galen and Hippocrates; but when 
he practises, he must apply his medicines 
according to the temper of those men's bodies 



06 TABLE TALK. 

with whom he lives, and have respect to the 
heat and cold of climes ; otherwise that which 
in Pergamus, where Galen lived, was physic, 
in our cold climate may be poison. So to be 
a divine, let him read the whole body of 
divinity, the fathers and the schoolmen; but 
when he comes to practice he must use it, 
and apply it according to those grounds and 
articles of religion that are established in the 
church, and this with sense. 

6. There be four things a minister should 
be at; the conscionary part, ecclesiastical 
story, school divinity, and the casuists. 

1st. In the conscionary part he must read 
all the chief fathers, both Latin and Greek 
wholly. St. Austin, St. Ambrose, St. Chry- 
sostome, both the Gregories, &c. Tertullian, 
Clemens, Alexandrinus, and Epiphanius ; 
which last have more learning in them than 
all the rest, and writ freely. 

2d. For ecclesiastical story let him read 
Baronius, with the Magdeburgenses, and be 
his own judge; the one being extremely for 
the Papists, the other extremely against them. 

3d. For school divinity let him get Javel- 
lus's edition of Scotus or M ayco, where there 
be quotations that direct you to every school- 
man, where such and such questions are 



TABLE TALK. 97 

handled. Without school divinity a divine 
knows nothing logically, nor will be able to 
satisfy a rational man out of the pulpit. 

4th. The study of the casuists must follow 
the study of the schoolmen, because the di- 
vision of their cases is according to their 
divinity ; otherwise he that begins with them 
will know little. As he that begins with the 
study of the reports and cases in the common 
law, will thereby know little of the law. 
Casuists may be of admirable use, if dis- 
creetly dealt with, though among them you 
shall have many leaves together very imper- 
tinent. A case w r ell decided would stick by 
a man; they would remember it whether they 
will or no; whereas a quaint position dieth in 
the birth. The main thing is to know where 
to search ; for talk what they will of vast me- 
mories, no man will presume upon his own 
memory for any thing he means to write or 
speak in public. 

7. Go and teach all nations. This was 
said to all Christians that then w r ere, before 
the distinction of clergy and laity; there have 
been since men designed to preach only by 
the state, as some men are designed to study 
the law, others to study physic. When the 
Lord's Supper was instituted, there were non*- 
K 



^B TABLE TALK. 

present but the disciples, shall none then but 
ministers receive ? 

8. There is all the reason you should believe 
jour minister, unless you have studied divinity 
as well as he, or more than he. 

9. It is a foolish thing to say ministers must 
not meddle with secular matters, because his 
own profession will take up the whole man ; 
may he not eat, or drink, or walk, or learn 
to sing? The meaning of that is, he must 
seriously attend his calling. 

10. Ministers with the Papists, that is, their 
priests, have much respect ; with the Puritans 
they have much, and that upon the same 
ground, they pretend both of them to come 
immediately from Christ; but with the Pro- 
testants they have very little; the reason 
whereof is, in the beginning of the Reforma- 
tion, they were glad to get such to take livings 
as they could procure by any invitations, 
things of pitiful condition. The nobility and 
gentry would not suffer their sons or kindred 
to meddle with the church, and therefore at 
this day, when they see a parson, they think 
him to be such a thing still, and there they 
will keep him, and use him accordingly; if 
he be a gentleman, that is singled out, and he 
is used the more respectfully. 



TABLE TALK. 99 

11. The protestant minister is least regard- 
ed, appears by the old story of the keeper of 
the clink. He had priests of several sorts 
sent unto him; as they came in, he asked 
them who they were. Who are you ? to the 
first. I am a priest of the church of Rome. 
You are welcome, quoth the keeper, there 
are those will take care of you. And who 
are you ? A silenced minister. You are wel- 
come too, I shall fare the better for you. 
And who are you? A minister of the church 
of England. O God help me, quoth the 
keeper, I shall get nothing by you, I am sure ; 
you may lie and starve, and rot, before any 
body will look after you. 

12. Methinks it is an ignorant thing for a 
churchman to call himself the minister of 
Christ, because St. Paul, or the apostles, called 
themselves so. If one of them had a voice 
from heaven, as St. Paul had, I will grant he 
is a minister of Christ, I will call him so too. 
Must they take upon them as the apostles did ? 
Can they do as the apostles could ? The apos- 
tles had a mark to be known by, spake tongues, 
cured diseases, trod upon serpents, &c. Can 
they do this ? If a gentleman tells me, he will 
send his man to me, and I did not know his 
man, but he gave me this mark to know him 



100 TABLE TALK. 

by, he should bring in his hand a rich jewel; 
if a fellow came to me with a pebble-stone, 
had I any reason to believe he was the gen- 
tleman's man? 

MONEY. 

1. Money makes a man laugh. A blind 
fiddler playing to a company, and playing but 
scurvily, the company laughed at him. His 
boy that led him, perceiving it, cried, Father, 
let us be gone, they do nothing but laugh at 
yon. Hold thy peace, boy, said the fiddler, 
we shall have their money presently, and then 
we will laugh at them. 

2. Euclid was beaten in Boccaline*, for 
teaching his scholars a mathematical figure in 
his school, whereby he showed, that all the 
lives both of princes and private men tended 
to one centre, con gentilezza, handsomely to 
get money out of other men's pockets, and it 
into their own. 

3. The pope used heretofore to send the 
princes of Christendom to fight against the 
Turk; but prince and pope finely juggled 
together; the monies were raised, and some 
men went out to the holy war; but commonly 

* See the Ragguaglia di Parnasso. 



TABLE TALK. 101 

after they had got the money, the Turk was 
pretty quiet, and the prince and the pope 
shared it between them. 

4. In all times the princes in England have 
done something illegal to get money. But 
then came a parliament, and all was well ; the 
people and the prince kissed and were friends, 
and so things were quiet for a while ; after- 
wards there was another trick found out to 
get money, and after they had got it, another 
parliament was called to set all right, &c. 
But now they have so outrun the constable 



MORAL HONESTY. 

They that cry down moral honesty, cry down 
that which is a great part of religion, my duty 
towards God, and my duty towards man. 
What care I to see a man run after a sermon, 
if he cozen and cheat as soon as he comes 
home. On the other side morality must not 
be without religion; for if so, it may change, 
as I see convenience. Religion must govern 
it. He that has not religion to govern his 
morality, is not a dram better than my mastiff 
dog; so long as you stroke him and please 
him, and do not pinch him, he will play with 
you as finely as may be; he is a very good 
K 2 



102 TABLE TALK. 

moral mastiff: but if you hurt him, he will fly 
in your face, and tear out your throat. 



MORTGAGE. 

In case I receive a thousand pounds, and 
mortgage as much land as is worth two thou- 
sand to you, if I do not pay the money at 
such a day, I fail— whether you may take my 
land and keep it in point of conscience? 
Answ. If you had my lands as security only 
for your money, then you are not to keep it ; 
but if we bargained so, that if I did not repay 
your one thousand pounds, my land should go 
for it, be it what it will, no doubt you may 
with a safe conscience keep it; for in these 
things all the obligation is servare Jidem. 

NUMBER. 

All those mysterious things they observe in 
numbers, come to nothing, upon this very 
ground, because number in itself is nothing, 
has not to do with nature, but is merely of 
human imposition, a mere sound. For ex- 
ample, when I cry, one a clock, two a clock, 
three a clock, that is but man's division of 
time; the time itself goes on, and it had been 



TABLE TALK. 103 

all one in nature if those hours had been 
called nine, ten, and eleven. So when they 
say the seventh son is fortunate, it means 
nothing; for if you count from the seventh 
backwards, then the first is the seventh, why 
is not he likewise fortunate? 

OATHS. 

1. Swearing was another thing with the 
Jews than with us, because they might not 
pronounce the name of the Lord Jehovah. 

2. There is no oath scarcely, but we swear 
to things we are ignorant of. For example, 
the oath of supremacy ; how many know how 
the king is king ? What are his right and pre- 
rogative ? So how many know what are the 
privileges of the parliament, and the liberty 
of the subject, when they take the protesta- 
tion ? But the meaning is, they will defend 
them when they know them. As if I should 
swear I would take part with all that wear 
red ribbons in their hats — it may be I do not 
know which colour is red — but when I do 
know, and see a red ribbon in a man's hat, 
then will I take his part. 

3. I cannot conceive how an oath is im- 



104 TABLE TALK. 

posed where there is a parity, viz. in the 
house of commons, they are all pares inter 
se ; only one brings paper, and shows it the 
rest, they look upon it, and in their own sense 
take it. Now they are but pares to me, who 
am none of the house, for I do not acknow- 
ledge myself their subject; if I did, then no 
question, I was bound by an oath of their 
imposing. It is to me but reading a paper 
in their own sense. 

4. There is a great difference between an 
assertory oath and a promissory oath. An 
assertory oath is made to a man before God, 
and I must swear so, as man may know what 
I mean. But a promissory oath is made to 
God only, and I am sure he knows my mean- 
ing. So in the new oath it runs, " Whereas 
I believe in my conscience, &c. I will assist 
thus and thus." That " whereas" gives me an 
outloose ; for if I do not believe so, for ought 
I know, I swear not at all. 

5. In a promissory oath, the mind I am in 
is a good interpretation ; for if there be enough 
happened to change my mind, I do not know 
why I should not. If I promise to go to 
Oxford to-morrow, and mean it when I say 
it, and afterwards it appears to me, that it 



TABLE TALK. 105 

will be my undoing, will you say I have broke 
my promise if I stay at home ? Certainly, T 
must not go. 

6. The Jews had this way with them con- 
cerning a promissory oath or vow : if one of 
them had vowed a vow, which afterwards 
appeared to him to be very prejudicial by 
reason of something he either did not foresee, 
or did not think of, when he made his vow; 
if he made it known to three of his country- 
men, they had power to absolve him, though 
he could not absolve himself, and that they 
picked out of some words in the text. Per- 
jury hath only to do with an assertory oath, 
and no man was punished for perjury by 
man's law till queen Elizabeth's time ; it was 
left to God, as a sin against him; the reason 
was, because it was so hard a thing to prove 
a man perjured. I might misunderstand him, 
and he swears as he thought. 

7. When men ask me whether they may 
take an oath in their own sense, it is to me, 
as if they should ask whether they may go 
to such a place upon their own legs, I would 
fain know how thev can go otherwise. 

8. If the ministers that are in sequestered 
livings will not take the engagement, threaten 
to turn them out and put in the old ones, and 



106 TABLE TALK. 

then I will warrant you they will quietly take 
it. A gentleman having been rambling two 
or three days, at length came home, and being 
in bed with his wife, would fain have been at 
something, that she was unwilling to, and 
instead of complying, fell to chiding him for 
his being abroad so long. Well, says he, if 
you will not, call up Sue (his wife's chamber- 
maid) ; upon that she yielded presently. 

9. Now oaths are so frequent, they should 
be taken like pills, swallowed whole; if you 
chew them, you will find them bitter; if you 
think what you swear, it will hardly go down. 

ORACLES. 

Oracles ceased presently after Christ, as 
soon as nobody Relieved them. Just as we 
have no fortune-tellers, nor wise men, when 
nobody cares for them. Sometimes you have 
a season for them, when people believe them; 
and neither of these, I conceive, wrought by 
the devil. 

OPINION. 

1. Opinion and affection extremely differ; 
I may affect a woman best, but it does not 
follow I must think her the handsomest woman 



TABLE TALK. 107 

in the world. I love apples best of any fruit, 
but it does not follow, I must think apples to 
be the best fruit. Opinion is something wherein 
I go about to give reason why all the world 
should think as I think. Affection is a thing 
wherein I look after the pleasing of myself. 

2. It was a good fancy of an old Platonic, 
The gods which are above men, had some- 
thing whereof man did partake (an intellect 
knowledge) ; and the gods kept on their course 
quietly. The beasts, which are below man, 
had something whereof man did partake (sense 
and growth), and the beasts lived quietly in 
their way. But man had something in him, 
whereof neither gods nor beasts did partake, 
which gave him all the trouble, and made all 
the confusion in the world, and that is opinion. 

3. It is a foolish thing for me to be brought 
off from an opinion in a thing neither of us 
know, but are led only by some cobweb-stuff, 
as in such a case as this, utrum anyeli in vicern 
colloquantur? If I forsake my side in such a 
case, I show myself wonderful light, or in- 
finitely complying, or flattering the other 
party. But if I be in a business of nature, 
and hold an opinion one way, and some man's 
experience has found out the contrary, I may 
with a safe reputation give up my side. 



108 TABLE TALK. 

4. It is a vain thing to talk of an heretic, 
for a man for his heart can think no otherwise 
than he does think. In the primitive times 
there were many opinions, nothing scarce but 
some or other held : one of these opinions 
being embraced by some prince, and received 
into his kingdom, the rest were condemned 
as heresies ; and his religion, which was but 
one of the several opinions, first is said to be 
orthodox, and so have continued ever since 
the apostles. 

PARITY. 

This is the juggling trick of the parity, they 
would have nobody above them, but they do 
not tell you they would have nobody under 
them. 

PARLIAMENT. 

1. All are involved in a parliament. There 
was a time when all men had their voice in 
choosing knights. About Henry the Sixth's 
time they found the inconvenience; so one 
parliament made a law, that only he that had 
forty shillings per annum should give his 
voice, they under should be excluded. They 
made the law who had the voice of all, as 
well under forty shillings as above ; and thus 



TABLE TALK. 109 

it continues at this day. All consent civilly 
in a parliament ; women are involved in the 
men, children in those of perfect age ; those 
that are under forty shillings a year, in those 
that have forty shillings a year; those of forty 
shillings, in the knights. 

2. All things are brought to the parliament, 
little to the courts of justice ; just as in a room 
whejre there is a banquet presented, if there 
be persons of quality there, the people must 
expect, and stay till the great ones have done. 

3. The parliament flying upon several men, 
and then letting them alone, does as a hawk 
that flies a covey of partridges, and when she 
has flown them a great way, grows weary, 
and takes a tree ; then the falconer lures her 
down, and takes her to his fist : on they go 
again, hei rett, up springs another covey, away 
goes the hawk, and as she did before, takes 
anodier tree, &c. 

4. Dissenters in parliament may at length 
come to a good end, though first there be a 
great deal of do, and a great deal of noise, 
which mad wild folks make ; just as in brew- 
ing of wrest-beer, there is a great deal of 
business in grinding the malt, and that spoils 
any man's clothes that comes near it ; then it 
must be mashed ; then comes a fellow in and 

L 



110 TABLE TALK. 

drinks of the wort, and lie is drunk; then 
they keep a huge quarter when they carry it 
into the cellar ; and a twelvemonth after it is 
delicate fine beer. 

5. It must necessarily be that our distem- 
pers are worse than they were in the begin- 
ning of the parliament. If a physician comes 
to a sick man, he lets him blood, it may be 
scarifies him, cups him, puts him into a great 
disorder, before he makes him well; and if 
he be sent for to cure an ague* and he finds 
his patient hath many diseases, a dropsy, and 
a palsy, he applies remedies to them all, 
which makes the cure the longer and the 
dearer: this is the case. 

6. The parliament men are as great princes 
as any in the world, when whatsoever they 
please is privilege of parliament; no man 
must know the number of their privileges, 
and whatsoever they dislike is breach of pri- 
vilege. The duke of Venice is no more than 
speaker of the house of commons; but the 
senate at Venice, are not so much as our 
parliament men; nor have they that power 
over the people, who yet exercise the greatest 
tyranny that is any where. In plain truth, 
breach of privilege is only the actual taking 
away of a member of the house, the rest are 



TABLE TALK. Ill 

offences against the house. For example, to 
take out process against a parliament man, or 
the like. 

7. The parliament party, if the law be for 
them, they call for the law ; if it be against 
them, they will go to a parliamentary way ; if 
no law be for them, then for law again : like 
him that first called for sack to heat him, then 
small drink to cool his sack, then sack again 
to heat his small drink, &e. 

8. The parliament party do not play fair 
play, in sitting up till two of the clock in the 
morning, to vote something they have a mind 
to. It is like a crafty gamester that makes 
the company drunk, then cheats them of their 
money. Young men, and infirm men, go 
away ; besides, a man is not there to persuade 
other men to be of his mind, but to speak his 
own heart; and if it be liked, so; if not, there 
is an end, 

PARSON. 

1. Though we write (parson) differently, yet 
it is but person; that is, the individual person 
set apart for the service of such a church, and 
it is in Latin persona, and personatus is a 
personage. Indeed, with the canon lawyers, 



112 TABLE TALK. 

personatus is any dignity or preferment in the 
church. 

2. There never was a merry world since 
the fairies left dancing, and the parson left 
conjuring. The opinion of the latter kept 
thieves in awe, and did as much good in a 
country as a justice of peace. 

PATIENCE. 

Patience is the chiefest fruit of study. 
A man that strives to make himself a different 
thing from other men by much reading, gains 
this chiefest good, that in all fortunes he hath 
something to entertain and comfort himself 
withal. 

PEACE. 

1. King James was pictured going easily 
down a pair of stairs, and upon every step 
there was written, peace, peace, peace. The 
wisest way for men in these times is to say 
nothing. 

2. When a country wench cannot get her 
butter to come, she says, The witch is in her 
churn. We have been churning for peace a 
great while, and it will not come; sure the 
witch is in it. 



TABLE TALK. 113 

3. Though we had peace, yet it will be a 
great while ere things be settled : though the 
wind lie, yet after a storm the sea will work a 
great while. 

PENANCE. 

Penance is only the punishment inflicted, 
not penitence, which is the right word ; a man 
conies not to do penance, because he repents 
him of his sin, but because he is compelled to 
it; he curses him, and could kill him that 
sends him thither. The old canons wisely 
enjoined three years penance, sometimes 
more ; because in that time a man got a habit 
of virtue, and so committed that sin no more, 
for which he did penance. 

people. 

1. There is not any thing in the world more 
abused than this sentence, Salus populi su- 
prema lex esto; for we apply it, as if we ought 
to forsake the known law, when it may be 
most for the advantage of the people, when it 
means no such thing. For first, it is not 
Salus populi suprema lex est, but esto, it being 
one of the laws of the twelve tables ; and after 
divers laws made, some for punishment, some 
L 2 



114 TABLE TALK. 

for reward, then follows this, Salus populi 
suprema lex esto: that is, in all the laws you 
make, have a special eye to the good of the 
people ; and then what does this concern the 
way they now go ? 

2. Objection. He that makes one, is greater 
than he that is made ; the people make the 
king, ergo, fyti. Answ. This does not hold; 
for if I have one thousand pounds per annum, 
and give it you, and leave myself never a 
penny, I made you; but when you have my 
land, you are greater than I. The parish 
makes the constable, and when the constable 
is made, he governs the parish. The answer 
to all these doubts is, Have you agreed so ? 
If you have, then it must remain till you have 
altered it. 

PLEASURE. 

1. Pleasure is nothing else but the inter- 
mission of pain, the enjoying of something I 
am in great trouble for till I have it. 

2. It is a wrong way to proportion other 
men's pleasures to ourselves ; it is like a child's 
using a little bird, O poor bird, thoushalt sleep 
with me ; so lays it in his bosom, and stifles it 
with his hot breath : the bird had rather be 
in the cold air. And yet, too, it is the 



TABLE TALK. 115 

most pleasing flattery, to like what other men 
like. 

3. It is most undoubtedly true, that all 
men are equally given to their pleasure, only 
thus, one man's pleasure lies one way, and 
another's another. Pleasures are all alike, 
simply considered in themselves : he that 
hunts, or he that governs the commonwealth, 
they both please themselves alike, only we 
commend that, whereby we ourselves receive 
some benefit. As if a man place his delight 
in things that tend to the common good, he 
that takes pleasure to hear sermons, enjoys 
himself as much as he that hears plays ; and 
could he that loves plays endeavour to love 
sermons, possibly he might bring himself to 
it as well as to any other pleasure. At first 
it may seem harsh and tedious, but afterwards 
it would be pleasing and delightful. So it 
falls out in that, which is the great pleasure 
of some men, tobacco; at first they could not 
abide it, and now they cannot be without it. 

4. Whilst you are upon earth, enjoy the 
good things that are here (to that end were 
they given) and be not melancholy, and wish 
yourself in heaven. If a king should give 
you the keeping of a castle, with all things 
belonging to it, orchards, gardens, &c. and 



116 TABLE TALK. 

bid you use them; withal promise you that 
after twenty years to remove you to the court, 
and to make you a privy counsellor. If you 
should neglect your castle, and refuse to eat 
of those fruits, and sit down, and whine, and 
wish you were a privy counsellor, do you 
think the king would be pleased with you ? 

5. Pleasures of meat, drink, clothes, &c. 
are forbidden those that know not how to use 
them, just as nurses cry pah ! when they see 
a knife in a child's hand — they will never say 
any thing to a man. 

PHILOSOPHY. 

When men comfort themselves with phi- 
losophy, it is not because they have got two 
or three sentences, but because they have 
digested those sentences, and made them their 
own: so upon the matter, philosophy is nothing 
but discretion. 

POETRY. 

1. Ovid was not only a fine poet, but, as a 
man may speak, a great canon lawyer, as 
appears in his fasti, where we have more of 
the festivals of the old Romans than any 
where else : it is pity the rest are lost. 



TABLE TALK. 117 

2. There is no reason plays should be in 
verse, either in blank or rhyme, only the poet 
has to say for himself, that he makes some- 
thing like that, which somebody made before 
him. The old poets had no other reason but 
this, their verse was sung to music ; otherwise 
it had been a senseless thing to have fettered 
up themselves. 

3. I never converted but two ; the one was 
Mr. Crashaw from writing against plays, by 
telling him a way how to understand that 
place, of putting on women's apparel, which 
has nothing to do in the business ; as neither 
has it, that the fathers speak against plays in 
their time, with reason enough; for they had 
real idolatries mixed with their plays, having 
three altars perpetually upon the stage. The 
other was a doctor of divinity, from preaching 
against painting, which simply in itself is no 
more hurtful than putting on my clothes, or 
doing any thing to make myself like other 
folks, that I may not be odious nor offensive 
to the company. Indeed if I do it with an 
ill intention, it alters the case ; so, if I put on 
my gloves with an intention to do a mischief, 
I am a villain. 

4. It is a fine thing for children to learn to 
make verse, but when they come to be men 



118 TABLE TALK* 

they must speak like other men, or else they 
will be laughed at. It is ridiculous to speak, 
or write, or preaeh in verse. As it is good 
to learn to dance : a man may learn his leg, 
learn to go handsomely ; but it is ridiculous 
for him to dance, when he should go. 

5. It is ridiculous for a lord to print verses; 
it is well enough to make them to please him- 
self, but to make them public, is foolish. If 
a man in a private chamber twirls his band- 
strings, or plays with a rush to please himself, 
it is well enough; but if he should go into 
Fleet-street, and sit upon a stall, and twirl a 
bandstring, or play with a rush, then all the 
boys in the street would laugh at him. 

6. Verse proves nothing but the quantity 
of syllables, they are not meant for logic. 

POPE. 

1. A pope's bull and a pope's brief differ 
very much, as with us, the great seal and the 
privy seal. The bull being the highest au- 
thority the king* can give, the brief is of less. 
The bull has a leaden seal upon silk, hanging 
upon the instrument. The brief has sub 
annulo piscatoris upon the side. 

2. He was a wise pope, that when one that 
* Sic but qu. Pope? 



TABLE TALK* 119 

used to be merry with him, before he was 
advanced to the popedom, refrained after- 
wards to come at him, presuming he was busy 
in governing the Christian world. The pope 
sends for him, bids him come again; And, 
says he, we will be merry as we were before, 
for thou little thinkest what a little foolery 
governs the whole world. 

3. The pope in sending relics to princes, 
does as wenches do by their wassails at New- 
year's-tide ; they present you with a cup, and 
you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the 
meaning is, you must give them monies, ten 
times more than it is worth. 

4. The pope is infallible, where he hath 
power to command, that is, where he must be 
obeyed ; so is every supreme power and prince. 
They that stretch his infallibility further, do 
they know not what. 

5. When a Protestant and a Papist dispute, 
they talk like two madmen, because they do 
not agree upon their principles ; the one way 
is, to destroy the pope's power; for if he hath 
power to command me, it is not my alleging 
reasons to the contrary can keep me from 
obeying. For example, if a constable com- 
mand me to wear a green suit to-morrow, and 



120 TABLE TALK. 

has power to make me, it is not my alleging 
a hundred reasons of the folly of it can excuse 
me from doing it. 

6. There was a time when the pope had 
power here in England, and there was excel- 
lent use made of it ; for it was only to serve 
turns, as might be manifested out of the re- 
cords of the kingdom, which divines know 
little of. If the king did not like what the 
pope would have, he would forbid the pope's 
legate to land upon his ground. So that the 
power was truly then in the king, though 
suffered in the pope. But now the temporal 
and the spiritual power, (spiritual so called, 
because ordained to a spiritual end) spring 
both from one fountain, they are like to twist 
that. 

7. The Protestants in France bear office in 
the state, because, though their religion be 
different, yet they acknowledge no other king 
but the king of France. The Papists in 
England they must have a king of their own, 
a pope, that must do something in our king- 
dom ; therefore there is no reason they should 
enjoy the same privileges. 

8. Amsterdam admits of all religions but 
Papists, and it is upon the same account. 



TABLE TALK. 121 

The Papists, wherever they live, have another 
king at Rome ; all other religions are subject 
to the present state, and have no prince else- 
where. 

9. The Papists call our religion a par- 
liamentary religion ; but there was once, I am 
sure, a parliamentary pope. Pope Urban 
was made pope in England by act of par- 
liament, against pope Clement ; the act is not 
in the book of statutes, either because he that 
compiled the book, would not have the name 
of the pope there, or else he would not let it 
appear that they meddled with any such thing; 
but it is upon the rolls. 

10. When our clergy preach against the 
pope, and the church of Rome, they preach 
against themselves; and crying down their 
pride, their power, and their riches, have 
made themselves poor and contemptible 
enough. They dedicate first to please their 
prince, not considering what would follow. 
Just as if a man were to go a journey, and 
seeing at his first setting out the way clean 
and fair, ventures forth in his slippers, not 
considering the dirt and the sloughs are a 
little further off, or how suddenly the weather 
may change. 

M 



122 TABLE TALK. 



POPEKY. 



1. The demanding a noble, for a dead body 
passing through a town, came from hence in 
time of popery ; they carried the dead body 
into the church, where the priest said dirges ; 
and twenty dirges at fourpence a piece comes 
to a noble, but now it is forbidden by an 
order from my lord marshal, the heralds carry 
his warrant about them. 

2. We charge the prelatical clergy with 
popery to make them odious, though we know 
they are guilty of no such thing. Just as here- 
tofore they called images Mammets, and the 
adoration of images Mammettry; that is, 
Mahomet and Manometry, odious names, 
when all the world knows the Turks are for- 
bidden images by their religion. 

POWER. STATE. 

1. There is no stretching of power. It is a 
good rule; eat within your stomach, act within 
your commission. 

2. They that govern most make least noise. 
You see when they row in a barge, they that 
do drudgery- work, slash, and puff, and sweat; 



TABLE TALK. 12:3 

but he that governs, sits quietly at the stern, 
and scarce is seen to stir. 

3. Syllables govern the world. 

4. All power is of God, means no more 
than fides est servanda. When St. Paul said 
this, the people had made Nero emperor. 
They agree, he to command, they to obey. 
Then God comes in, and casts a hook upon 
them, keep your faith ; then comes in, all 
power is of God. Never king dropped out 
of the clouds. God did not make a new em- 
peror, as the king makes a justice of peace. 

5. Christ himself was a great observer of 
the civil power, and did many things only 
justifiable, because the state required it, which 
were things merely temporary for the time 
that state stood. But divines make use of 
them to gain power to themselves. As for 
example, that of die ecclesice, tell the church ; 
there was then a Sanhedrim, a court to tell it 
to, and therefore they would have it so now. 

6. Divines ought to do no more than what 
the state permits. Before the state became 
Christian, they made their own laws; and 
those that did not observe them, they excom- 
municated, (naughty men) they suffered them 
to come no more amongst them. But if they 
would come amongst them, how could they 



124 TABLE TALK. 

hinder them ? By what law ? By what power? 
They were still subject to the state, which was 
Heathen. Nothing better expresses the con- 
dition of Christians in those times, than one 
of the meetings you have in London, of men 
of the same country, of Sussex men, or Bed- 
fordshire men; they appoint their meeting, 
and they agree, and make laws amongst them- 
selves (He that is not there shall pay double, 
Sec.) ; and if any one misbehave himself, they 
shut him out of their company. But can they 
recover a forfeiture made concerning their 
meeting by any law ? Have they any power 
to compel one to pay ? But afterwards, when 
the state became Christian, all the power was 
in them, and they gave the church as much, 
or as little as they pleased, and took away 
when they pleased, and added what they 
pleased. 

7. The church is not only subject to the 
civil power with us that are Protestants, but 
also in Spain. If the church does excom- 
municate a man for what it should not, the 
civil power will take him out of their hands. 
So in France, the bishop of Angiers altered 
something in the Breviary ; they complained 
to the parliament at Paris, that made him 
alter it again, with a comme abuse. 



TABLE TALK. 12"> 

8. The parliament of England has no arbi- 
trary power in point of judicature, but in point 
of making law only. 

9. If the prince be servus natura, of a 
servile base spirit, and the subjects liberi, 
free and ingenuous, oft-times they depose 
their prince, and govern themselves. On the 
contrary, if the people be servi natura, and 
some one amongst them of a free and in- 
genuous spirit, he makes himself king of the 
rest; and this is the cause of all changes in 
state. Commonwealths into monarchies, and 
monarchies into commonwealths. 

10. In a troubled state we must do as in 
foul weather upon the Thames, not think to 
cut directly through, so the boat may be 
quickly full of water, but rise and fall as the 
waves do, give as much as conveniently we 
can. 

PRAYER. 

1. If I were a minister, 1 should think my- 
self most in my office, reading of prayers, 
and dispensing the sacraments ; and it is ill 
done to put one to officiate in the church, 
whose person is contemptible out of it. Should 
a great lady, that was invited to be a gossip, 
in her place send her kitchen-maid, it would 
M 2 



12(5 TABLE TALK. 

be ill taken, yet she is a woman as well as 
she ; let her send her woman at least. 

2. You shall pray, is the right way, because, 
according as the church is settled, no man 
may make a prayer in public of his own 
head. 

3. It is not the original Common Prayer 
Book; why, show me an original Bible, or 
an original Magna Charta. 

4. Admit the preacher prays by the spirit, 
yet that very prayer is common prayer to the 
people ; they are tied as much to his words, 
as in saying, Almighty and most merciful 
Father. Is it then unlawful in the minister, 
but not unlawful in the people ? 

5. There were some mathematicians, that 
could with one fetch of their pen make an 
exact circle, and with the next touch point 
out the centre ; is it therefore reasonable to 
banish all use of the compasses? Set forms 
are a pair of compasses. 

6. God hath given gifts unto men. General 
texts prove nothing : let him show me John, 
William, or Thomas in the text, and then I 
will believe him. If a man hath a voluble 
tongue, we say, he hath the gift of prayer. 
His gift is to pray long, that I see; but does 
he pray better? 



TABLE TALK. 127 

7* We take care what we speak to men, 
but to God we may say any thing. 

8. The people must not think a thought 
towards God, but as their pastors will put it 
into their mouths : they will make right sheep 
of us. 

9. The English priests would do that in 
English which the Romish do in Latin, keep 
the people in ignorance; but some of the 
people outdo them at their own game. 

10. Prayer should be short, without giving 
God Almighty reasons why he should grant 
this, or that; he knows best what is good for 
us. If your boy should ask you a suit of 
clothes, and give you reasons (otherwise he 
cannot wait upon you, he cannot go abroad 
but he shall discredit you) would you endure 
it? You know it better than he: let him ask 
a suit of clothes. 

11. If a servant that has been fed with 
good beef, goes into that part of England 
where salmon is plenty, at first he is pleased 
with his salmon, and despises his beef, but 
after he has been there a while, he grows 
weary of his salmon, and wishes for his good 
beef again. We have awhile been much 
taken with this praying by the spirit, but in 



123 TABLE TALK. 

time we may grow weary of it, and wish for 
our Common Prayer. 

12. It is hoped we may be cured of our 
extemporary prayers the same way the grocer's 
boy is cured of his eating plums, when we 
have had our bellv full of them. 



PREACHING. 

1. Nothing is more mistaken than that 
speech, Preach the Gospel; for it is not to 
make long harangues, as they do now a-day's, 
but to tell the news of Christ's coming into 
the world ; and when that is done, or where 
it is known already, the preacher's work is 
done. 

2. Preaching, in the first sense of the word, 
ceased as soon as ever the gospels were 
written. 

3. When the preacher says, this is the 
meaning of the Holy Ghost in such a place, 
in sense he can mean no more than this, that 
is, I, by studying of the place, by comparing 
one place with another, by weighing what 
goes before, and what comes after, think this 
is the meaning of the Holy Ghost; and for 
shortness of expression I say, the Holy Ghost 



TABLE TALK. 120 

says thus, or this is the meaning of the Spirit 
of God. So the judge speaks of the king's 
proclamation; this is the intention of the king, 
not that the king had declared his intention 
any other way to the judge; but the judge 
examining the contents of the proclamation, 
gathers by the purport of the words, the king's 
intention; and then for shortness of expres- 
sion says, this is the king's intention. 

4. Nothing is text but what was spoken in 
the Bible, and meant there for person and 
place ; the rest is application, which a discreet 
man may do well; but it is his Scripture, not 
the Holy Ghost. 

5. Preaching by the Spirit, as they call it, 
is most esteemed by the common people, be- 
cause they cannot abide art or learning, which 
they have not been bred up in. Just as in 
the business of fencing ; if one country fellow 
amongst the rest, has been at the school, the 
rest will undervalue his skill, or tell him he 
wants valour: You come with your school 
tricks — Tbere is Dick Butcher has ten times 
more mettle in him. So they say to the 
preachers, You come with your school learn- 
ing — There is such a one has the Spirit. 

6. The tone in preaching does much in 
working upon the people's affections. If a 



130 TABLE TALK. 

man should make love in an ordinary tone, 
his mistress would not regard him ; and there- 
fore he must whine. If a man should cry 
fire, or murder, in an ordinary voice, nobody 
would come out to help him. 

7. Preachers will bring any thing into the 
text. The young masters of arts preached 
against non-residency in the university; where- 
upon the heads made an order, that no man 
should meddle with any thing but what was 
in the text. The next day one preached upon 
these words, Abraham begat Isaac; when he 
had gone a good way, at last he observed, 
that Abraham was resident, for if he had 
been non-resident, he could never have begat 
Isaac; and so fell foul upon the non-resi- 
dents. 

8. I could never tell what often preaching 
meant, after a church is settled, and we know 
what is to be done ; it is just as if a husband- 
man should once tell his servants what they 
are to do, when to sow, when to reap, and 
afterwards one should come and tell them 
twice or thrice a day what they know already. 
You must sow your wheat in October, you 
must reap your wheat in August, &c. 

9. The main argument why they would 
have two sermons a day, is, because they 



TABLE TALK. 131 

have two meals a day; the soul must be fed 
as well as the body. But I may as well 
argue, I ought to have two noses because I 
have two eyes, or two mouths because I have 
two ears. What have meals and sermons to 
do one with another ? 

10. The things between God and man are 
but a few, and those, forsooth, we must be 
told often of; but things between man and 
man are many; those I hear not of above 
twice a year, at the assizes, or once a quarter 
at the sessions; but few come then; nor does 
the minister exhort the people to go at these 
times to learn their duty towards their neigh- 
bour. Often preaching is sure to keep the 
minister in countenance, that he may have 
something to do. 

11. In preaching they say more to raise 
men to love virtue than men can possibly 
perform, to make them do their best; as if 
you would teach a man to throw the bar ; to 
make him put out his strength, you bid him 
throw farther than it is possible for him, or 
any man else : throw over yonder house. 

12. In preaching they do by men as writers 
of romances do by their chief knights, bring 
them into many dangers, but still fetch them 



132 TABLE TALK. 

off: so they put men in fear of hell, but at 
last they bring them to heaven. 

13. Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I 
do. But if a physician had the same disease 
upon him that I have, and he should bid me 
do one thing, and he do quite another, could 
I believe him? 

14. Preaching the same sermon to all sorts 
of people, is, as if a schoolmaster should read 
the same lesson to his several forms. If he 
reads Amo, amas, amavi, the highest forms 
laugh at him ; the younger boys admire him : 
so it is in preaching to a mixed auditory. 
Objection. But it cannot be otherwise; the 
parish cannot be divided into several forms. 
What must the preacher then do in discretion? 
Answ. Why then let him use some expres- 
sions by which this or that condition of peo- 
people may know such doctrine does more 
especially concern them, it being so delivered 
that the wisest may be content to hear. For 
if he delivers it altogether, and leaves it to 
them to single out what belongs to themselves, 
which is the usual way, it is as if a man 
would bestow gifts upon children of several 
ages : two years old, four years old, ten years 
old, &c; and there he brings tops, pins, 



TABLE TALK. 133 

points, ribbons, and casts them all in a heap 
together upon a table before them; though 
the boy of ten years old knows how to choose 
his top, yet the child of two years old, that 
should have a ribbon, takes a pin, and the 
pin, ere he be aware, pricks his fingers, and 
then all is out of order, &c. Preaching, for 
the most part, is the glory of the preacher, to 
show himself a fine man. Catechising would 
do much better. 

15. Use the best arguments to persuade, 
though but few understand ; for the ignorant 
will sooner believe the judicious of the parish, 
than the preacher himself; and they teach 
when they dissipate what he has said, and 
believe it the sooner, confirmed by men of 
their own side. For betwixt the laity and 
the clergy, there is, as it were, a continual 
driving of a bargain; something the clergy 
would still have us be at, and therefore many 
things are heard from the preacher with sus- 
picion. They are afraid of some ends, which 
are easily assented to, when they^have it from 
some of themselves. It is with a sermon as 
it is with a play, many come to see it, which 
do not understand it; and yet hearing it 
cried up. by one, whose judgment they cast 
themselves upon, and of power with them, 

N 



134 TABLE TALK. 

they swear and will die in it, that it is a very 
good play, which they would not have done 
if the priest himself had told them so. As 
in a great school, it is the master that teaches 
all ; the monitor does a great deal of work ; 
it may he the boys are afraid to see the 
master. So in a parish it is not the minister 
does all; the greater neighbour teaches the 
lesser, the master of the house teaches his 
servant, &e. 

16. First, in your sermons use your logic, 
and then your rhetoric. Rhetoric without 
logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, 
but no root; yet I confess more are taken 
with rhetoric than logic, because they are 
caught with a free expression, when they 
understand not reason. Logic must be na- 
tural, or it is worth nothing at all. Your rhe- 
toric figures may be learned. That rhetoric 
is best which is most seasonable and most 
catching. An instance we have in that old 
blunt commander at Cadiz, who showed him- 
self a good orator : being to say something to 
his soldiers, which he was not used to do, he 
made them a speech to this purpose : * What a 
shame will it be, you Englishmen, that feed 
upon good beef and brewess, to let those 
rascally Spaniards beat you, that eat nothing 



TABLE TALK. 135 

but oranges and lemons.' And so put more 
courage into his men than he could have done 
with a more learned oration. Rhetoric is 
very good, or stark naught. Th^re is no 
medium in rhetoric. If I am not fully per- 
suaded, I laugh at the orator. 

17. It is good to preach the same thing 
again, for that is the way to have it learned. 
You see a bird by often whistling to learn a 
tune, and a month after record it to herself. 

1 8. It is a hard case a minister should be 
turned out of his living for something they 
inform he should say in his pulpit. We can 
iio more know what a minister said in his 
sermon by two or three words picked out of 
it, than we can tell what tune a musician 
played last upon the lute, by two or three 
single notes. 

PREDESTINATION. 

1. They that talk nothing but predestination, 
and will not proceed in the way of heaven 
till they be satisfied in that point, do, as a 
man that would not come to London, unless 
at his first step he might set his foot upon the 
top of St. Paul's. 

2. For a young divine to begin in his pulpit 



136 TABLE TALK. 

with predestination, is as if a man were. com- 
ing into London, and at his first step would 
think to set his foot, &c. 

3. Predestination is a point inaccessible, 
out of our reach ; we can make no notion of 
it, it is so full of intricacy, so full of contra- 
diction; it is iii good earnest, as we state it, 
half-a-dozen bulls one upon another. 

4. Doctor Prideaux in his lectures, several 
days used arguments to prove predestination ; 
at last tells his auditory they are damned that 
do not believe it; doing herein just like school- 
boys, when one of them has got an apple, or 
something the rest have a mind to, they use 
all the arguments they can to get some of it 
from them : I gave you some the other day : 
You shall have some with me another time. 
When they cannot prevail, they tell him he is 
a jackanapes, a rogue and a rascal. 

PREFERMENT. 

1. When you would have a child go to such 
a place, and you find him unwilling, you tell 
him he shall ride a cock-horse, and then he 
will go presently : so do those that govern the 
state, deal by men, to work them to their 
ends ; they tell them they shall be advanced 



TABLE TALK. 187 

to such or such a place, and they will do any 
thing they would have them. 

2. A great place strangely qualifies. John 
Read (was in the right), groom of the cham- 
ber to my lord of Kent. Attorney Noy 
being dead, some were saying, How will the 
king do for a fit man ? Why, any man, says 
John Read, may execute the place. — I war- 
rant, says my lord, thou thinkest thou under- 
standest enough to perform it. — Yes, quoth 
John, let the king make me attorney, and I 
would fain see that man, that durst tell me, 
there is any thing I understand not. 

3. When the pageants are a coming there 
is a great thrusting and a riding upon, one 
another's backs, to look out at the window ; 
stay a little and they will come just to you, 
you may see them quietly. So it is when a 
new statesman or officer is chosen ; there is 
great expectation and listening who it should 
be ; stay awhile, and you may know quietly. 

4. Missing preferment makes the Pres- 
byters fall foul upon the bishops. Men that 
are in hopes and in the way of rising, keep 
in the channel, but they that have none, seek 
new r ways : it is so amongst the lawyers ; he 
that hath the judge's ear, will be very ob» 

N 2 



138 TABLE TALK. 

servant of the way of the court; but he that 
hath no regard, will be flying out. 

5. My lord Digby having spoken some- 
thing in the house of commons, for which 
they would have questioned him, was pre- 
sently called to the upper house. He did by 
the parliament as an ape when he hath done 
some waggery; his master spies him, and he 
looks for his whip, but before he can come 
at him, Whip, says he, to the top of the 
house. 

6. Some of the parliament were discon- 
tented, that they wanted places at court, 
which others had got; but when they had 
them once, then they were quiet. Just as at 
a christening, some that get no sugar-plums, 
when the rest have, mutter and grumble; 
presently the wench comes again with her 
basket of sugar-plums, and then they catch 
and scramble ; and when they have got them, 
you hear no more of them. 

PREMUNIRE. 

There can be no premunire. A premunire, 
so called from the word premunire facias, 
was when a man laid an action in an eccle- 



TABLE TALK. 139 

siastical court, for which he could have no 
remedy in any of the king's courts ; that is, 
in the courts of common law, by reason, the 
ecclesiastical courts, before Henry the Eighth, 
were subordinate to the pope; and so it was 
contra coronam et dignitatem regis. But now 
the ecclesiastical courts are equally sub- 
ordinate to the king. Therefore it cannot be 
contra coronam et dignitatem regis, and so no 
premunire. 

PREROGATIVE. 

1. Prerogative is something that can be 
told what it is, not something that has no 
name. Just as you see the archbishop has 
his prerogative court, but we know what is 
done in that court. So the king's prerogative 
is not his will, or what divines make it, a 
power to do what he lists. 

2. The king's prerogative, that is, the king*s 
law. For example, if you ask whether a 
patron may present to a living after six months 
by law? I answer, no. If you ask whether 
the king may ? I answer, he may, by his pre- 
rogative; that is, by the law that concerns 
him in that case. 



140 TABLE TALK. 

/ 

PRESBYTERY. 

1. They that would bring in a new govern- 
ment, would very fain persuade us, they meet 
it in antiquity ; thus they interpret presbyters, 
when they meet the word in the fathers. 
Other professions likewise pretend to anti- 
quity. The alchymist will find his art in 
Virgil's Aureus ramus, and he that delights in 
optics will find them in Tacitus. When 
Cassar came into England they would per- 
suade us, they had perspective glasses, by 
which he could discover what they were doing 
upon the land ; because it is said, Positis spe* 
cults: the meaning is, his watch, or his sen- 
tinel discovered this, and this unto him. 

2. Presbyters have the greatest power of 
any clergy in the world, and gull the laity 
most. For example ; admit there be twelve 
laymen to six presbyters, the six shall govern 
the rest as they please. First, because they 
are constant, and the others come in like 
churchwardens in their turns, which is an 
huge advantage. Men will give way to them 
who have been in place before them. Next, 
the laymen have other professions to follow ; 
the presbyters make it their sole business; 



TABLE TALK. 141 

and, besides too, they learn and study the 
art of persuading : some of Geneva have con- 
fessed as much. 

3. The presbyter with his elders about him 
is like a young tree fenced about with two or 
three or four stakes; the stakes defend it, 
and hold it up ; but the tree only prospers 
and flourishes ; it may be some willow stake 
may bear a leaf or two, but it conies to 
nothing. Lay-elders are stakes, the pres- 
byter the tree that flourishes. 

4. When the queries were sent to the as- 
sembly concerning the jus divinum of Pres- 
bytery, their asking time to answer them, was 
a satire upon themselves. For if it were to 
be seen in the text, they might quickly turn 
to the place and show us it. Their delaying 
to answer makes us think there is no such 
thing there. They do just as you have seen 
a fellow do at a tavern reckoning, when he 
should come to pay his reckoning he puts his 
hands into his pockets, and keeps a grabbling 
and a fumbling, and shaking, at last tells you 
he has left his money at home; when all the 
company knew at first, he had no money 
there, for every man can quickly find his own 
money. 



142 TABLE TALK. 



PRIESTS OF HOME. 



1, The reason of the statute against priests, 
was this : in the beginning of queen Elizabeth 
there was a statute made, that he that drew 
men from their civil obedience was a traitor. 
It happened this was done in privacies and 
confessions, when there could be no proof; 
therefore they made another act, that for a 
priest to be in England, was treason, because 
they presumed that was his business to fetch 
men off from their obedience. 

2. When queen Elizabeth died, and king 
James came in, an Irish priest does thus 
express it : Elizabeiha in orcum detrusa, sue- 
cessit Jacobus, alter heretievs. You will ask 
why they did use such language in their 
church. Answ. Why does the nurse tell the 
child of raw-head and bloody-bones, to keep 
it in awe ? 

3. The queen mother and Count Rosset, 
are to the priests and Jesuits like the honey- 
pot to the flies. 

4. The priests of Rome aim but at two 
things, to get power from the king, and money 
from the subject. 

5. When the priests come into a family, 



TABLE TALK. 143 

they do as a man that would set fire on a 
house ; he does not put fire to the brick wall, 
but thrusts it into the thatch. They work 
upon the women, and let the men alone. 

6. For a priest to turn a man when he lies 
a dying, is just like one that hath a long time 
solicited a woman, and cannot obtain his end; 
at length makes her drunk, and so lies with 
her. 

PROPHECIES. 

Dreams and prophecies do thus much good ; 
they make a man go on with boldness and 
courage, upon a danger or a mistress. If he 
obtains, he attributes much to them; if he 
miscarries, he thinks no more of them, or is 
no more thought of himself. 

PROVERBS. 

The proverbs of several nations were much 
studied by bishop Andrews, and the reason 
he gave, was, because by them he knew the 
minds of several nations ; which is a brave 
thing; as we count him a wise man, that 
knows the minds and insides of men, which 
is done by knowing what is habitual to them. 



144 TABLE TALK. 

Proverbs are habitual to a nation, being trans- 
mitted from father to son. 



QUESTION. 

When a doubt is propounded, you must 
learn to distinguish, and show wherein a thing 
holds, and wherein it does not hold. Aye, or 
no, never answered any question. The not 
distinguishing where things should be dis- 
tinguished, and the not confounding, where 
tilings should be confounded, is the cause of 
all the mistakes in the world. 

REASON. 

1 . In giving reasons, men commonly do with 
us as the woman does with her child ; when 
she goes to market about her business, she 
tells it she goes to buy it a tine thing, to buy 
it a cake or some plums. They give us such 
reasons as they think we will be catched 
withal, but never let us know the truth. 

2. When the schoolmen talk of recta ratio 
in morals, either they understand reason, as 
it is governed by a command from above; or 
else they say no more than a woman, when 



TABLE TALK. 145 

she says a thing is so, because it is so ; that 
is her reason persuades her it is so. The 
other exception has sense in it. As, take a 
law of the land, I must not depopulate, my 
reason tells me so. Why ? Because if I do, 
I incur the detriment. 

3. The reason of a thing is not to be in- 
quired after, till you are sure the thing itself 
bfc so. We commonly are at what is the 
reason of it ? before we are sure of the thing. 
It was an excellent question of my lady Cot- 
ton, when Sir Robert Cotton was magnifying 
of a shoe, which was Moses's or Noah's, and 
wondering at the strange shape and fashion 
of it. But, Mr. Cotton, says she, are you 
sure it is a shoe ? 

RETALIATION. 

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. 
That does not mean, that if I put out another 
man's eye, therefore I must lose one of my 
own; for what is he the better for that? 
though this be commonly received; but it 
means, I shall give him what satisfaction an 
eye shall be judged to be worth. 



146 TABLE TALK. 

REVERENCE. 

It is sometimes unreasonable to look after 
respect and reverence, either from a man's 
own servant, or other inferiors. A great lord 
and a gentleman talking together, there came 
a boy by, leading a calf with both his hands ; 
says the lord to the gentleman, You shall see 
me make the boy let go his calf. With that 
he came towards him, thinking the boy would 
have put off his hat, but the boy took no 
notice of him. The lord seeing that, Sirrah, 
says he, do you not know me, that you use no 
reverence ? — Yes, says the boy, if your lord- 
ship will hold my calf, I will put off my hat. 

NON-RESIDENCY. 

1. The people thought they had a great vic- 
tory over the clergy, when in Henry the 
Eighth's time they got their bill passed, 
" That a clergyman should have but two 
livings f before a man might have twenty or 
thirty. It was but getting a dispensation from 
the pope's limiter, or gatherer of the Peter- 
pence, which was as easily got, as now you 
may have a licence to eat flesh. 

2. As soon as a minister is made, he hath 



TABLE TALK. 347 

power to preach all over the world, but the 
civil power restrains him ; he cannot preach 
in this parish, or in that ; there is one already 
appointed. Now if the state allows him two 
livings, then he hath two places where he 
may exercise his function, and so has the 
more power to do his office; which he might 
do every-where if he were not restrained. 

RELIGION. 

1. King James said to the fly, Have I three 
kingdoms, and thou must needs fly into my 
eye? Is there not enough to meddle with 
upon the stage, or in love, or at the table, but 
religion ? 

2. Religion amongst men appears to me 
like the learning they got at school. Some 
men forget all they learned, others spend upon 
the stock, and some improve it. So some 
men forget all the religion that was taught 
them when they were young, others spend 
upon that stock, and some improve it. 

3. Religion is like the fashion ; one man 
wears his doublet slashed, another laced, 
another plain; but every man has a doublet: 
so every man has his religion. We differ 
about trimming. 



148 TABLE TALK. 

4. Men say they are of the same religion 
for quietness sake; but if the matter were 
well examined, you would scarce find three 
any where of the same religion in all points. 

5. Every religion is a getting religion ; for 
though I myself get nothing, I am subordi- 
nate to those that do. So you may find a 
lawyer in the Temple that gets little for the 
present, but he is fitting himself to be in time 
one of those great ones that do get 

6. Alteration of religion is dangerous, 
because we know not where it will stay ; it is 
like a millstone that lies upon the top of a 
pair of stairs ; it is hard to remove it, but if 
once it be thrust off the first stair, it never 
stays till it comes to the bottom. 

7. Question. Whether is the church or the 
Scripture judge of religion ? Answ. In truth 
neither, but the state. I am troubled with a 
bile ; I call a company of chirurgeons about 
me ; one prescribes one thing, another another; 
I single out something I like, and ask you 
that stand by, and are no chirurgeon, what 
you think of it? You like it too; you and I 
are judges of the plaster, and we bid them 
prepare it, and there is an end. Thus it is in 
religion; the Protestants say they will be 
judged by the Scripture; the Papists say so 



TABLE TALK. 149 

too; but that cannot speak. A judge is no 
judge, except he can both speak and command 
execution ; but the truth is, they never intend 
to agree. No doubt the pope where he is 
supreme, is to be judge; it* he say we in 
England ought to be subject to him, then he 
must draw his sword and make it good. 

8. By the law was the manual received into 
the church before the Reformation, not by 
the civil law, that had nothing to do in it ; 
nor by the canon law, for that manual that 
was here, was not in France, nor in Spain ; 
but by custom, which is the common law of 
England ; and custom is but the elder brother 
to a parliament ; and so it will fall out to be 
nothing that the Papists say, ours is a par- 
liamentary religion, by reason the sexvice-book 
was established by act of parliament, and 
never any service-book was so before. That 
will be nothing that the pope sent the manual: 
it was ours, because the state received it. 
The state still uiakes the religion, and receives 
into it what will best agree with it. Why are 
the Venetians Roman Catholics ? Because the 
state likes the religion. All the world knows 
they care not threepence for the pope. The 
council of Trent is not at this day admitted 
in France. 

o 2 



150 TABLE TALK. 

9. Papist. Where was your religion before 
Luther, an hundred years ago ? Protestant. 
Where was America an hundred or sixscore 
years ago? Our religion was where the rest 
of the Christian church was. Papist. Our 
religion continued ever since the apostles, and 
therefore it is better. Protestant. So did 
ours. That there was an interruption of it, 
will fall out to be nothing, no more than if 
another earl should tell me of the earl of 
Kent, saying, He is a better earl than he, 
because there was one or two of the family 
of Kent did not take the title upon them; yet 
all that while they were really earls ; and 
afterwards a great prince declared them to be 
earls of Kent, as he that made the other family 
an earl. 

10. Disputes in religion will never be 
ended, because there wants a measure by 
which the business would be decided. The 
Puritan would be judged by the word of God : 
if he would speak clearly, he means himself, 
but he is ashamed to say so ; and he would 
have me believe him before a whole church, 
that has read the word of God as well as he. 
One says one thing, and another another; and 
there is, I say, no measure to end the con- 
troversy. It is just as if two men were at 



TABLE TALK. 151 

bowls, and both judged by the eye; one says, 
it is his cast, the other says, it is my cast ; 
and having no measure, the difference is 
eternal. Ben Jonson satirically expressed 
the vain disputes of divines by Inigo Lan- 
thorne, disputing with his puppet in a Bar- 
tholomew fair. It is so — It is not so— It is 
so — It is not so, crying thus one to another a 
quarter of an hour together. 

11. In matters of religion to be ruled by 
one that writes against his adversary, and 
throws all the dirt he can in his face, is, as if 
in point of good manners a man should be 
governed by one whom he sees at cuffs with 
another, and thereupon thinks himself bound 
to give the next man he meets a box on the 
ear. 

12. It is to no purpose to labour to recon- 
cile religions, when the interest of princes 
will not suffer it. It is well if they could be 
reconciled so far, that they should not cut 
one another's throats. 

13. There is all the reason in the world 
divines should not be suffered to go a hair 
beyond their bounds, for fear of breeding 
confusion, since there now be so many reli- 
gions on foot. The matter was not so nar- 
rowly to be looked after when there was but 



lo2 TABLE TALK. 

one religion in Christendom ; the rest would 
cry him down for an heretic, and there was 
nobody to side with him. 

14. We look after religion as the butcher 
did after his knife, when he had it in his 
mouth. 

15. Religion is made a juggler's paper; 
now it is a horse, now it is a lanthorn, now it 
is a boar, now it is a man. To serve ends 
religion is turned into all shapes. 

16. Pretending religion and the law of 
God, is to set all things loose : when a man 
has no mind to do something he ought to do 
by his contract with man, then he gets a text, 
and interprets it as he pleases, and so thinks 
to get loose. 

1 7. Some men's pretending religion, is like 
the roaring boys' way of challenges; ' their re- 
putation is dear, it does not stand with the 
honour of a gentleman;' when, God knows, 
they have neither honour nor reputation about 
them. 

18. They talk much of settling religion : 
religion is well enough settled already, if we 
would let it alone. Methinks we might look 
after, &c. 

19. If men would say they took arms for 
any thing but religion, they might be beaten 



TABLE TALK. 153 

out of it by reason; out of that they never 
can, for they will not believe you whatever 
you say. 

20. The very arcanum of pretending reli- 
gion in all wars is, that something may be 
found out in which all men may have interest. 
In this the groom has as much interest as the 
lord. Were it for land, one has a thousand 
acres, and the other but one; he would not 
venture so far, as he that has a thousand. 
But religion is equal to both. Had all men 
land alike, by a lex agraria, then all men 
would say they fought for land, 

SABBATH. 

Why should I think all the fourth command- 
ment belongs to me, when all the fifth does 
not? What land will the Lord give me for 
honouring my father? It was spoken to the 
Jews with reference to the land of Canaan ; 
but the meaning is, if I honour my parents, 
God will also bless me. We read the com- 
mandments in the church service, as we do 
David's Psalms, not that all there concerns 
us, but a great deal of them does. 



154 TABLE TALK. 

SACRAMENT. 

1. Christ suffered Judas to take the com- 
munion. Those ministers that keep their 
parishioners from it, because they will not do 
as they will have them, revenge, rather than 
reform. 

2. No man can tell whether I am fit to 
receive the sacrament; for though I were fit 
the day before, when he examined me, at 
least appeared so to him; yet how can he tell 
what sin I have committed that night, or the 
next morning, or what impious atheistical 
thoughts I may have about me, when I am 
approaching to the very table ? 

SALVATION. 

We can best understand the meaning of 
vioTtjpia, salvation, from the Jews, to whom 
the Saviour was promised. They held that 
themselves should have the chief place of 
happiness in the other world ; but the Gen- 
tiles that were good men, should likewise 
have their portion of bliss there too. Now 
by Christ the partition-wall is broken down, 
and the Gentiles that believe in him, are 
admitted to the same place of bliss with the 



TABLE TALK. 155 

Jews. And why then should not that portion 
of happiness still remain to them, who do 
not believe in Christ, so they be morally 
good? This is a charitable opinion. 

STATE. 

In a troubled state save as much for your 
own as you can. A dog had been at market 
to buy a shoulder of mutton; coming home 
he met two dogs by the way, that quarrelled 
with him ; he laid down his shoulder of mut- 
ton, and fell to fighting with one of them ; in 
the mean time the other dog fell to eating his 
mutton. He seeing that, left the dog he was 
fighting with, and fell upon him that was 
eating; then the other dog fell to eat; when 
he perceived there was no remedy, but which 
of them soever he fought withal, his mutton 
was in danger, he thought he would have as 
much of it as he could, and thereupon gave 
over fighting, and fell to eating himself. 

SUPERSTITION. 

1. They that are against superstition often- 
times run into it of the wrong side. If I will 
wear all colours but black, then am I super- 
stitious in not wearing black. 



156 TABLE TALK. 

2. They pretend not to abide the cross, 
because it is superstitious ; for my part I will 
believe them, when I see them throw their 
money out of their pockets, and not till then. 

3. If there be any superstition truly and 
properly so called, it is their observing the 
Sabbath after the Jewish manner. 

SUBSIDIES. 

1. Heretofore the parliament was weary 
what subsidies they gave to the king, because 
they had no account; but now they care not 
how much they give of the subjects' money, 
because they give it with one hand and receive 
it with the other; and so upon the matter 
give it themselves. In the mean time what a 
case the subjects of England are in; if the 
men they have sent to the parliament mis- 
behave themselves, they cannot help it, because 
the parliament is eternal. 

2. A subsidy was counted the fifth part of 
a man's estate, and so fifty subsidies is five- 
and-forty times more than a man is worth. 

SIMONY. 

The name of Simony was begot in the canon 
law ; the first statute against it was in queen 



TABLE TALK, 157 

Elizabeth's time. Since the Reformation 
simony has been frequent: one reason why 
it was not practised in time of popery, was 
the pope's provision; no man was sure to 
bestow his own benefice. 

SHIP-MONEY. 

1. Mr. Noy brought in ship-money first for 
maritime towns, but that was like putting in a 
little auger, that afterwards you may put in a 
greater. He that pulls down the first brick, 
does the main work ; afterwards it is easy to 
pull down the wall. 

2. They that at first would not pay ship- 
money, till it was decided, did like brave 
men, though perhaps they did no good by the 
trial ; but they that stand out since, and suffer 
themselves to be distrained, never questioning 
those that do it, do pitifully, for so they only 
pay twice as much as they should. 

SYNOD ASSEMBLY. 

1. We have had no national synod since the 
kingdom hath been settled, as now it is, only 
provincial; and there will be this inconveni- 
ency, to call so many divines together ; it will 
p 



158 TABLE TALK. 

be to put power in their hands, who are too 
apt to usurp it, as if the laity were bound by 
their determination. No, let the laity consult 
with divines on all sides, hear what they say, 
and make themselves masters of their reasons ; 
as they do by any other profession, when 
they have a difference before them. For 
example, goldsmiths ; they inquire of them, if 
such a jewel be of such a value, and such a 
stone of such a value, hear them, and then, 
being rational men, judge themselves. 

2. Why should you have a synod, when 
you have a convocation already, which is a 
synod? Would you have a superfetation of 
another synod ? The clergy of England, when 
they cast off the pope, submitted themselves 
to the civil power, and so have continued; 
but these challenge to be jure divino, and so 
to be above the civil power : these challenge 
power to call before their Presbyteries all 
persons for all sins directly against the law of 
God, as proved to be sins by necessary con- 
sequence. If you would buy gloves, send 
for a glover or two, not Glover's-hall; consult 
with some divines, not send for a body. 

3. There must be some laymen in the synod, 
to overlook the clergy, lest they spoil the 
civil work; just as when the good woman 



TABLE TALK. 159 

puts a cat into the milk-house to kill a mouse, 
she sends her maid to look after the eat, lest 
the cat should eat up the cream. 

4. In the ordinance for the assembly, the 
lords and commons go under the names of 
learned, godly, and judicious divines ; there 
is no difference put betwixt them and the 
ministers in the context. 

5. It is not unusual in the assembly to 
revoke their votes, by reason they make so 
much haste, but it is that will make them 
scorned. You never heard of a council re- 
voked an act of its own making; they have 
been wary in that, to keep up their infalli- 
bility ; if they did any thing they took away 
the whole council, and yet we would be 
thought infallible as any body. It is not enough 
to say, the house of commons revoke their 
votes, for theirs are but civil truths which they 
by agreement create, and uncreate, as they 
please. But the truths the synod deals in 
are divine ; and when they have voted a thing, 
if it be then true, it was true before ; not true 
because they voted it, nor does it cease to be 
true because they voted otherwise. 

6. Subscribing in a synod, or to the articles 
of a synod, is no such terrible thing as they 
make it; because, if I am of a synod, it is 



1(50 TABLE TALK. 

agreed, either tacitly or expressly. That 
which the major part determines, the rest are 
involved in; and therefore I subscribe, though 
my own private opinion be otherwise; and 
upon the same ground, I may, without scruple, 
subscribe to what those have determined, 
whom I sent, though my private opinion be 
otherwise ; having respect to that which is the 
ground of all assemblies, the major part 
carries it. 

THANKSGIVING. 

At first we gave thanks for every victory as 
soon as ever it was obtained, but since we 
have had many now we can stay a good while. 
We are just like a child ; give him a plum, 
he makes his leg; give him a second plum, 
he makes another leg. At last when his belly 
is full, he forgets what he ought to do ; then 
his nurse, or somebody else that stands by 
him, puts him in mind of his duty, Where is 
your leg ? 

TITHES. 

1. Tithes are more paid in kind in England, 
than in all Italy and France. In France they 
have had impropriations a long time ; we had 
none in England till Henry the Eighth. 



TABLE TA1K, 161 

2. To make an impropriation, there was to 
be the consent of the incumbent, the patron, 
and the king; then it was confirmed by the 
pope. Without all this the pope could make 
no impropriation. 

3. Or what if the pope gave the tithes to 
any man, must they therefore be taken away ? 
If the pope gives me a jewel, will you there- 
fore take it away from me ? 

4. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedec, 
what then? It was very well done of him. 
It does not follow therefore that I must pay 
tithes, no more than I am bound to imitate 
any other action of Abraham's. 

5. It is ridiculous to say the tithes are 
God's part, and therefore the clergy must have 
them : why, so they are if the layman has 
them. It is as if one of my lady Kent's 
maids should be sweeping this room, and 
another of them should come and take away 
the broom, and tell for a reason, why she 
should part with it — It is my lady's broom : 
as if it were not my lady's broom, which of 
them soever had it. 

6. They consulted in Oxford where they 
might find the best argument for their tithes, 
setting aside the jus divinum; they were ad- 

p2 



162 TABLE TALK. 

vised to my History of Tithes, a book so 
much cried down by them formerly ; in which 
I dare boldly say, there are more arguments 
for them than are extant together any where. 
Upon this, one writ me word, That my His- 
tory of Tithes was now become like Peleus's 
Hasta, to wound and to heal. I told him in 
my answer, I thought I could fit him with a 
better instance. It was possible it might un- 
dergo the same fate that Aristotle, Avicen, 
and Averroes did in France, some five hun- 
dred years ago ; which were excommunicated 
by Stephen, bishop of Paris (by that very 
name, excommunicated), because that kind of 
learning puzzled and troubled their divinity. 
But finding themselves at a loss, some forty 
years after, which is much about the time 
since I writ my history, they were called in 
again, and so have continued ever since. 

TRADE. 

1. There is no prince in Christendom but is 
directly a tradesman, though in another way 
than an ordinary tradesman. For the pur- 
pose : I have a man; I bid him lay out twenty 
shillings in such commodities, but I tell him 



TABLE TALK. lt>3 

for every shilling he lays out 1 will have a 
penny. I trade as well as he. This every 
prince does in his customs. 

2. That which a man is bred up in, he 
thinks no cheating ; as your tradesman thinks 
not so of his profession, but calls it a mystery. 
Whereas if you would teach a mercer to make 
his silks heavier than what he has been used 
to, he would peradventure think that to be 
cheating. 

3. Every tradesman professes to cheat me, 
that asks for his commodity twice as much as 
it is worth. 

TRADITION. 

Say what you will against tradition, we know 
the signification of words by nothing but 
tradition. You will say the Scripture was 
written by the Holy Spirit; but do you under- 
stand that language it was writ in? No. 
Then for example, take these words, In prin- 
cipio erat verbum. How do you know those 
words signify, In the beginning was the word> 
but by tradition, because somebody has told 
you so ? 



164 TABLE TALK. 

TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 

1. The fathers using to speak rhetorically 
brought up transubstantiation; as if because 
it is commonly said, Amicus est alter idem, 
one should go about to prove a man and his 
friend are all one. That opinion is only 
rhetoric turned into logic. 

2. There is no greater argument, though 
not used, against transubstantiation, than the 
apostles at their first council, forbidding blood 
and suffocation. Would they forbid blood, 
and yet enjoin the eating of blood too? 

3. The best way for a pious man, is to 
address himself to the sacrament with that 
reverence and devotion, as if Christ were 
really there present. 

TRAITOR. 

It is not seasonable to call a man traitor that 
has an army at his heels. One with an army 
is a gallant man. My lady Cotton was in the 
right, when she laughed at the duchess of 
Richmond for taking such state upon her, 
when she could command no forces. She a 
duchess! there is in Flanders a duchess in- 
deed; meaning the arch-duchess. 



TABLE TALK, 165 

TRINITY. 

The second person is made of a piece of 
bread by the Papist, the third person is made 
of his own frenzy, malice, ignorance, and 
folly, by the roundhead. To all these the 
Spirit is intituled. One the baker makes, the 
other the cobbler ; and betwixt those two, I 
think the first person is sufficiently abused. 

TRUTH. 

1. The Aristotelians say, All truth is con- 
tained in Aristotle in one place or another. 
Galileo makes Simplicius say so, but shows 
the absurdity of that speech, by answering, 
All truth is contained in a lesser compass; 
viz. in the alphabet. Aristotle is not blamed 
for mistaking sometimes; but Aristotelians 
for maintaining those mistakes. They should 
acknowledge the good they have from him, 
and leave him when he is in the wrong. 
There never breathed that person to whom 
mankind was more beholden. 

2. The way to find out the truth is by others' 
mistakings. For if I was to go to such a 
place, and one had gone before me on the 
right-hand, and he was out ; another had gone 



\GG TABLE TALK, 

on the left-hand, and he was out ; this would 
direct me to keep the middle way, that per- 
ad venture would hring me to the place T 
desired to go. 

3. In troubled water you can scarce see 
your face ; or see it very little, till the water 
be quiet and stand still. So in troubled times 
you can see little truth; when times are quiet 
and settled, then truth appears, 

TRIAL. 

1. Trials are by one of these three ways; 
by confession, or by demurrer; that is, con- 
fessing the fact, but denying it to be that, 
wherewith a man is charged. For example, 
denying it to be treason, if a man be charged 
with treason ; or by a jury. 

2. Ordalium was a trial; and was either 
by going over nine red hot ploughshares, (as 
in the case of queen Emma, accused for lying 
with the bishop of Winchester, over which 
she being led blindfold, and having passed all 
her irons, asked when she should come to her 
trial ;) or it was by taking a red hot coulter in 
a man's hand, and carrying it so many steps, 
and then casting it from him. As soon as 
this was done, the hands or the feet were to 



TABLE TALK. 167 

be bound up, and certain charms to be said, 
and a day or two after to be opened ; if the 
parts were whole, the party was judged to be 
innocent; and so on the contrary. 

3. The rack is used no where as in- England : 
in other countries it is used in judicature, 
when there is a semiplena probation a half 
proof against a man; then to see if they can 
make it full, they rack him if he will not 
confess. But here in England they take a 
man and rack him, I do not know why, nor 
when; not in time of judicature, but when 
somebody bids. 

4. Some men before they come to their 
trial, are cozened to confess upon examination : 
upon this trick, they are made to believe some- 
body has confessed before them; and then 
they think it a piece of honour to be clear 
and ingenuous, and that destroys them. 

UNIVERSITY. 

1. The best argument why Oxford should 
have precedence of Cambridge is the act of 
parliament, by which Oxford is made a body; 
made what it is; and Cambridge is made 
what it is; and in the act it takes place. 



168 TABLE TALK. 

Besides Oxford has the best monuments to 
show. 

2. It was well said of one, hearing of a 
history lecture, to be founded in the uni- 
versity ; Would to God, says he, they would 
direct a lecture of discretion there, this would 
do more good there an hundred times. 

3. He that comes from the university to 
govern the state, before he is acquainted with 
the men and manners of the place, does just 
as if he should come into the presence cham- 
ber all dirty, with his boots on, his riding 
coat, and his head all daubed. They may 
serve him well enough in the way, but when 
he conies to court, he must conform to the 
place. 

vows. 

Suppose a man find by his own inclination 
he has no mind to marry, may he not then 
vow chastity? Answ. If he does, what a fine 
thing hath he done ? It is as if a man did not 
love cheese ; and then he would vow to God 
Almighty never to eat cheese. He that vows 
can mean no more in sense than this ; to do 
his utmost endeavour to keep his vow. 



TABLE TALK. 169 

USURY. 

1. The Jews were forbidden to take use one 
of another, but they were not forbidden to 
take it of other nations. That being so, I 
see no reason why I may not as well take use 
for my money as rent for my house. It is a 
vain thing to say, money begets not money ; 
for that no doubt it does. 

2. Would it not look oddly to a stranger, 
that should come into this land, and hear in 
our pulpits usury preached against; and yet 
the law allow it? Many men use it; perhaps 
some churchmen themselves. No bishop nor 
ecclesiastical judge, that pretends power to 
punish other faults, dares punish, or at least 
does punish any man for doing it. 

PIOUS uses. 

The ground of the ordinary's taking part of 
a man's estate, who died without a will, to 
pious uses, was this : to give it somebody to 
pray, that his soul might be delivered out of 
purgatory; now the pious uses come into his 
own pocket. It was well expressed by John 
o* Fowls in the play, who acted the priest; 
one that was to be hanged, being brought to 
S 



170 TABLE TALK. 

the ladder, would fain have given something 
to the poor; he feels for his purse, which 
John o' Powls had picked out of his pocket 
before ; missing it, cries out, he had lost his 
purse. Now he intended to have given some- 
thing to the poor. John o' Powls bid him be 
pacified, for the poor had it already. 

WAR. 

1. Do not undervalue an enemy by whom 
you have been worsted. When our country- 
men came home from fighting with the Sara- 
cens, and were beaten by them, they pictured 
them with huge, big, terrible faces, as you 
still see the sign of the Saracen's head is, 
when in truth they were like other men. But 
this they did to save their own credits. 

2. Martial law, in general, means nothing 
but the martial law of this, or that place; 
with us to be used in fervore belli, in the face 
of the enemy, not in time of peace ; there 
they can take away neither limb nor life. 
The commanders need not complain for want 
of it, because our ancestors have done gallant 
things without it. 

3. Quest. Whether may subjects take up 
arms against their prince? Answ. Conceive 



TABLE TALK. 171 

it thus : here lies a shilling betwixt you and 
me ; ten-pence of the shilling is yours, two- 
pence is mine. By agreement, I am as much 
king of my two-pence, as you of your ten- 
pence. If you therefore go about to take 
away my two-pence, I will defend it; for 
there you and I are equal, both princes. 

4. Or thus : two supreme powers meet ; 
one says to the other, Give me your land ; if 
you will not, I will take it from you. The 
other, because he thinks himself too weak to 
resist him, tells him, Of nine parts I will give 
you three; so I may quietly enjoy the rest, 
and I will become your tributary. After- 
wards the prince comes to exact six parts, and 
leaves but three; the contract then is broken, 
and they are in parity again. 

5. To know what obedience is due to the 
prince, you must look into the contract betwixt 
him and his people ; as if you would know 
what rent is due from the tenant to the land- 
lord, you must look into the lease. When 
the contract is broken, and there is no third 
person to judge, then the decision is by arms. 
And this is the case between the prince and 
the subject. 

0. Quest, What law is there to take up 



172 TABLE TALK, 

arms against the prince, in case he break his 
covenant? Ansiv. Though there be no written 
law for it, yet there is custom, which is the 
best law of the kingdom ; for in England they 
have always done it. There is nothing ex- 
pressed between the king of England and the 
king of France, that if either invades the 
other's territory, the other shall take up arms 
against him ; and yet they do it upon such an 
occasion. 

7. It is all one to be plundered by a troop 
of horse, or to have a man's goods taken from 
him by an order from the council-table. To 
him that dies, it is all one whether it be by a 
penny halter, or a silk garter; yet I confess 
the silk garter pleases more ; and like trouts 
we love to be tickled to death. 

8. The soldiers say they fight for honour; 
when the truth is, they have their honour in 
their pocket. And they mean the same thing 
that pretend to fight for religion. Just as a 
parson goes to law with his parishioners ; he 
says, for the good of his successors, that the 
church may not lose its right; when the mean- 
ing is, to get the tithes into his own pocket. 

9. We govern this war as an unskilful man 
does a casting-net; if he has not the right 



TABLE TALK. 173 

trick to cast the net oft* his shoulder, the leads 
will pull him into the river. I am afraid we 
shall pull ourselves into destruction. 

10. We look after the particulars of a bat- 
tle, because we live in the very time of war ; 
where, as of battles past, we hear nothing 
but the number slain. Just as for the death 
of a man, when he is sick, we talk how he 
slept this night, and that night; what he eat, 
and what he drank. But when he is dead, 
we only say, he died of a fever, or name his 
disease ; and there is an end. 

11. Boccaline has this passage of soldiers : 
They came to Apollo to have their profession 
made the eighth liberal science; which he 
granted. As soon as it was noised up and 
down, it came to the butchers, and they de- 
sired their profession might be made the ninth : 
For, say they, the soldiers have this honour 
for the killing of men ; now we kill as well 
as they ; but we kill beasts for the preserving 
of men, and why should not we have honour 
likewise done to us ? Apollo could not answer 
their reasons, so he revers'd his sentence, and 
made the soldier's trade a mystery, as the 
butcher's is. 



o 2 



174 TABLE TALK. 



WITCHES. 



Th e law against witches does not prove there 
be any; but it punishes the malice of those 
people, that use such means, to take away 
men's lives. If one should profess that by 
turning his hat thrice, and crying buz, he 
could take away a man's life, though in truth 
he could do no such thing ; yet this were a 
just law made by the state, that whosoever 
should turn his hat thrice, and cry buz, with 
an intention to take away a man's life, shall 
be put to death. 

WIFE. 

1. He that hath a handsome wife, by other 
men is thought happy ; it is a pleasure to look 
upon her, and be in her company; but the 
husband is cloyed with her. We are never 
content with what we have. 

2. You shall see a monkey sometimes, that 
has been playing up and down the garden, at 
length leap up to the top of the wall, but his 
clog hangs a great way below on this side. 
The bishop's wife is like that monkey's clog ; 
himself is got up very high, takes place of the 
temporal barons, but his wife comes a great 
way behind. 



TABLE TALK. 175 

3. It is reason a man that will have a wife 
should be at the charge of her trinkets, and 
pay all the scores she sets on him. He that 
will keep a monkey, it is fit he should pay for 
the glasses he breaks. 

WISDOM. 

1. A wise man should never resolve upon 
any thing, at least never let the world know 
his resolution ; for if he cannot arrive at that, 
he is ashamed. How many things did the 
king resolve in his declaration concerning 
Scotland, never to do, and yet did them all ? 
A man must do according to accidents and 
emergencies. 

2. Never tell your resolution beforehand ; 
but when the cast is thrown, play it as well 
as you can to win the game you are at. It is 
but folly to study, how to play size-ace, when 
you know not whether you shall throw it or 
no. 

3. Wise men say nothing in dangerous 
times. The lion, you know, called the sheep, 
to ask her if his breath smelled : she said, 
Aye; he bit off her head for a fool. He 
called the wolf and asked him : he said, No; 
he tore him in pieces for a flatterer. At last 



170 TABLE TALK. 

he called the fox and asked him : truly, he 
had got a cold, and could not smell. King 
James was pictured, &c. 

WIT. 

1. Wit and wisdom differ; wit is upon the 
sudden turn, wisdom is in bringing about 
ends. 

2. Nature must be the groundwork of wit 
and art; otherwise whatever is done will prove 
but Jack-pudding's work. 

3. Wit must grow like fingers; if it be 
taken from others, it is like plums stuck upon 
black thorns ; there they are for a while, but 
they come to nothing. 

4. He that will give himself to all manner 
of ways to get money, may be rich ; so he that 
lets fly all he knows or thinks, may by chance 
be satirically witty. Honesty sometimes keeps 
a man from growing rich, and civility from 
being witty. 

5. Women ought not to know their own 
wit, because they will still be showing it, and 
so spoil it ; like a child that will continually 
be showing its fine new coat, till at length it 
all bedawbs it with its pah-hands. 

6. Fine wits destroy themselves with their 



TABLE TALK. 177 

own plots, in meddling with great affairs of 
state. They commonly do as the ape that 
saw the gunner put bullets in the cannon, and 
was pleased with it, and he would be doing 
so too ; at last he puts himself into the piece, 
and so both ape and bullet were shot away 
together. 

WOMEN. 

1. Let the women have poiver of their heads, 
because of the angels. The reason of the 
words because of the angels, is this : the Greek 
church held an opinion that the angels fell in 
love with women. This fancy St. Paul dis- 
creetly catches, and uses it as an argument to 
persuade them to modesty. 

2. The grant of a place is not good by the 
canon-law before a man be dead ; upon this 
ground some mischief might be plotted against 
him in present possession, by poisoning, or 
some other way. Upon the same reason a 
contract made with a woman during her hus- 
band's life, was not valid. 

3. Men are not troubled to hear a man 
dispraised, because they know, though he be 
naught, there is worth in others. But women 
are mightily troubled to hear any of them 



178 TABLE TALK. 

spoken against, as if the sex itself were guilty 
of some unworthiness. 

4. Women and princes must both trust 
somebody ; and they are happy, or unhappy, 
according to the desert of those under whose 
hands they fall. If a man knows how to 
manage the favour of a lady, her honour is 
safe, and so is a prince's. 

5. An opinion grounded upon that, Gen. vi. 
The Sons of God saw the daughters of men 
that they were fair. 

YEAR. 

1. It was the manner of the Jews, if the 
year did not fall out right, but that it was 
dirty for the people to come up to Jerusalem 
at the feast of the passover, or that their corn 
was not ripe for their first fruits, to intercalate 
a month, and so to have, as it ^vere, two Fe- 
bruary's ; thrusting up the year still higher, 
March into April's place, April into May's 
place, &c. Whereupon it is impossible for 
us to know when our Saviour was born, or 
when he died. 

2. The year is either the year of the moon, 
or the year of the sun; there is not above 



TABLE TALK. 179 

eleven days difference. Our moveable feasts 
are according to the year of the moon, else 
they should be fixed. 

3. Though they reckon ten days sooner 
beyond sea, yet it does not follow their spring 
is sooner than ours : we keep the same time 
in natural things ; and their ten days sooner, 
and our ten days later, in those things mean 
the self same time; just as twelve sons in 
French, are tenpence in English. 

4. The lengthening of days is not suddenly 
perceived till they are grown a pretty deal 
longer, because the sun, though it be in a 
circle, yet it seems for a while to go in a right 
line. For take a segment of a great circle 
especially, and you shall doubt whether it be 
straight or no. But when that sun is got past 
that line, then you presently perceive the days 
are lengthened. Thus it is in the winter and 
summer solstice, which is indeed the true 
reason of them. 

5. The eclipse of the sun is, when it is 
new moon ; the eclipse of the moon when it 
is full. s They say Dionysius was converted 
by the eclipse that happened at our Saviour's 
death, because it was neither of these, and so 
could not be natural. 



180 TABLE TALK. 



ZEALOTS. 



One would wonder Christ should whip the 
buyers and sellers out of the temple, and 
nobody offer to resist him, considering what 
opinion they had of him. But the reason 
was, they had a law, that whosoever did pro- 
fane sanctitatem Dei, aut templi ; the holiness 
of God, or the temple, before ten persons, it 
was lawful for any of them to kill him, or to 
do any thing this side killing him; as whip- 
ping him, or the like. And hence it was, that 
when one struck our Saviour before the judge, 
where it was not lawful to strike, as it is not 
with us at this day, he only replies : If I have 
spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if 
well, why smitest thou me ? He says nothing 
against their smiting him, in case he had been 
guilty of speaking evil, that is, blasphemy; 
and they could have proved it against him. v 
They that put this law in execution were 
called zealots ; but afterwards they committed 
many villanies. 



C. Whiitiiigbaui, Printer, College House, Chiswick. 



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